I am from Brazil. Here around 1950 the government deliberately gave priority to roads over railroads and rivers as a way to attract car factories, hoping to get

I am from Brazil. Here around 1950 the government deliberately gave priority to roads over railroads and rivers as a way to attract car factories, hoping to get their taxes and create employment. Currently in Brazil the laws about import cars are extremely draconian, and taxes are overall sky high, crappy local made cars are frequently 2 times the EU or US price of the same, but higher quality model. People still get in terrible debts, paying sometimes interest that totals several times the principal, to buy cars anyway, not because they are useful, but because frequently they are the only choice. For example in Rio de Janeiro, because of the Olympics, the government deliberately canceled public transportation routes connecting poor areas to the touristic areas, forcing people of poor areas to use cars, specially because parts of the route are impossible to cross on foot (mountains with no hiking trails, with the passage being road tunnels) Or that for the world cup, the government declined several train proposals in favour of making "light train over road" routes, where you just build gigantic roads on pillars and place buses on them.