English: Downtown of Canoas, in Rio Grande do Sul. The image shows the BR-116.
The Getúlio Vargas Federal Highway, coded as BR-116, was built between 1953 and 1956, initially with a double track. It is not possible for me to determine the exact date of the beginning of the works, nor the date of its inauguration, since I was then a boy of between 9 and 11 years, and at that time I did not record the facts with precision. Only years later, when faced with the need, it was extended to four lanes and the side lanes (or shoulders) were added. I remember as if today how I and my brothers from the interior of the state were amazed to see those powerful machines (tractors, backhoes, trucks with demolition, etc.), ripping the ravines to lower the bed of what would become the Getúlio Federal Highway Vargas, or BR-116 as it is coded. We were, my brothers, the children of Osório Bohn's family (Celso, Carlinhos, Luiz, Paulo and Mariana) and I, who were posted for hours at the top of the ravine of Rua Santos Ferreira, which stood at the head of SAMDU, Canoas Prison and the residence of the councilman and former interim mayor Júlio Cardoso de Araújo, father of the ex-playmaker of the Grêmio Foot-Ball Porto Alegrenese and of the Gaucho Team, Danton Andrade de Araújo and the former councilman Dinarte Andrade de Araújo. Today, BR-116 has become the most important route, not only connecting the Capital Porto Alegre with the interior of the State, but also the transport route for most agricultural, industrial, and livestock production in the State. Through it, thousands and thousands of vehicles (trucks, buses, trucks and automobiles) travel daily, in a frenzied shuttle. (Information provided by the dean journalist Xico Júnior, 12.05.2007)