The Rodovia Bandeirantes (official designation SP-348) is a highway in the state of

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. Once the traffic capacity of the Anhangüera Highway was exceeded in the 1960s, the state government decided to build another highway, with a much higher capacity and modern design, directly connecting

City to Jundiaí,

Campinas Campinas (, ''Plains'' or ''Meadows'') is a Brazilian municipality in São Paulo State, part of the country's Southeast Region. According to the 2020 estimate, the city's population is 1,213,792, making it the fourteenth most populous Brazilian ...

and merging into the Anhangüera just after Campinas. Among the first six-lane highways in Brazil, it opened to traffic in 1978. It has always been a

toll road A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road (almost always a controlled-access highway in the present day) for which a fee (or ''toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented ...

, and since 1998, the highway is managed by a state contract with a private company, AutoBan. Subsequently, in 2001 it was extended to

Santa Bárbara d'Oeste Santa Bárbara d'Oeste is a Municipalities of Brazil, municipality in the São Paulo (state), State of São Paulo in Brazil. It is part of the Metropolitan Region of Campinas. It lies about northwest of the State capital. It occupies an area of , ...

merging with the Washington Luis Highway, to

Rio Claro Rio Claro (Portuguese and Spanish for "clear river" or "clean river") may refer to: Cities *Rio Claro, Trinidad and Tobago, the largest town in southeastern Trinidad and Tobago *Rio Claro, Rio de Janeiro, a Brazilian municipality in the state of R ...

São Carlos São Carlos (Saint Charles, in English, ; named after Saint Charles Borromeo) is a Brazilian municipality in the interior of the state of São Paulo, 254 kilometers from the city of São Paulo. With a population of 254,484 inhabitants, it is th ...

Araraquara Araraquara ( or ) is a city in the state of São Paulo (state), São Paulo in Brazil. The population is 250.314 (2022 est.) in an area of . It is also known as "the abode of the sun," because of its impressive sunset and because of its hot atmosphe ...

and

São José do Rio Preto São José do Rio Preto () is a municipality in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The city is located at the northwest portion of the state, 440 km (273 mi) from the city of São Paulo and 700 km (435 mi) from Brasília. As of ...

. In 2006, it was widened to 4 lanes each way between São Paulo and Jundiaí. It is today the major thoroughfare between several mighty industrial cities around São Paulo and Campinas, and the Viracopos Airport, the second busiest

cargo Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including trans ...

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

in the country. The highway is named after the

bandeirantes The ''Bandeirantes'' (), literally "flag-carriers", were slavers, explorers, adventurers, and fortune hunters in early Colonial Brazil. They are largely responsible for Brazil's great expansion westward, far beyond the Tordesillas Line of 1494 ...

, audacious

explorer Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

s of the Brazilian hinterlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, whose treks through the

rain forest Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainforest ...

s become the templates for the major thoroughfares of the São Paulo highway system. Rodovia Bandeirantes SAO 2008 06

History

The Rodovia dos Bandeirantes was inaugurated on Saturday, 28 October 1978, by then President Ernesto Geisel and Governor Paulo Egídio Martins. Its name is a tribute to the bandeirantes who explored the interior of Brazil from the coast in the State of São Paulo, just in the same route that today is the route. When the maximum traffic capacity of the Via Anhanguera was reached, around 1960, the state government decided to build another highway with much greater capacity. Built from a modern project (being one of the first highways in the country with three lanes in each direction, currently there are five from São Paulo to Jundiaí). The highway connects the municipality of

to the municipality of Cordeirópolis. In May 1998, the then governor of the state of São Paulo, Mario Covas, in a series of privatizations, transferred the administration of the highway to the company AutoBAn, of CCR. In the management of this company, the highway was modernized and extended to the municipality of Cordeirópolis, in an additional 78 km stretch, with access at km 168 to Washington Luís Highway to São Carlos and São José do Rio Preto, and with access at km 173 the Via Anhanguera to

Araras Araras () is a municipality located in the interior of State of São Paulo, Brazil. The population is 135,506 as of the 2020 IBGE estimate. Etymology Araras means macaws. Sports União São João Esporte Clube, founded in 1981, is the most suc ...

and Ribeirão Preto.

History

References

See also