Roads. Aside from the railways, a meagre supply for a country of its size, other means of transportation are inadequate. Street railways exist in the chief cities: Caracas, Valencia, La Guaira, Puerto Cabello, Maracaibo, Bolívar, Barquisimeto, Carúpano, and Cumaná. The great water power available for electric traction and for other purposes should be largely developed in future. Some automobile and cart roads exist, 1636 miles at the end of 1919, but to a large extent transportation is over bridle paths or caminos.
An excellent automobile road leads from La Guaira to Caracas. From the capital such roads branch in several directions. One goes east to Guatire, two south to Ocumare del Tuy, one of these with a branch south from Cua. A good road leads through Maracay to Valencia; from midway, a branch leads south through Villa de Cura to Ortiz in Guárico, from which point construction is being continued to Calabozo, the capital, and thence to San Fernando, capital of Apure. Another road leads from Ocumare de la Costa to Maracay.
From Puerto Cabello one may go by auto to Valencia and to Guigüe, south of the lake; also from the port to San Felipe and Barquisimeto.
From the city of Maracaibo a road goes north to San Rafael near the mouth of the Channel, and one southwest to Perija, west of the centre of the Lake, passing two petroleum sites.
From the terminus of the Táchira Railway, Uracá, a road leads to San Cristóbal, and one to Cúcuta in Colombia. From Motatán a good wagon road goes to Trujillo. Pack animals serve from El Vigia to Mérida. In the east there is the long road from San Felix on the Orinoco to El Callao and Tumeremo.
Other roads are in construction or planned for the immediate future. From Coro a road is to go south and southwest to Trujillo and beyond, and one near the coast to Altagracia on the Maracaibo Channel, northeast of that city. Several roads will branch from Barquisimeto and from Valencia, the most important, one from Valencia southwest to San Carlos, Guanare, Barinas, and San Cristóbal. Shorter local roads will serve Cumaná and Carúpano.
Considerable activity has recently been manifested in road building; and bridges, long sadly lacking over mountain torrents, have been constructed. Some deeper streams have ferries.
River communication and lake service are important in many sections. Of Venezuela’s nearly 500 rivers, 74 are said to be navigable a distance of 6000 miles, 4000 in the Orinoco Basin. Especially in Bolívar and Amazonas communication is by river, but in other States also it is important. The Orinoco is a natural highway 600 miles to Pericos and the Atures Rapids. There is regular weekly service to San Fernando de Apure. There is traffic along the Apure, Arauca, and Meta Rivers, the last two in Colombia; but the affluents on the north side of the Orinoco are too variable in depth to permit regular service, and those on the south are too broken by cataracts.
On Maracaibo Lake are plenty of craft, both steam and sailing vessels, two main lines of the former running from Maracaibo, one along the west side of the Lake and up the Catatumbo to Encontrados and the Táchira Railway, the other to La Ceiba and the Motatán Railway going towards Trujillo on the east side; a smaller boat runs around the south side of the Lake and up the Escalante to Santa Bárbara. From Encontrados a line of small steamers runs up the Zulia to Villamizar.