Until the last decade of the 19th century, the principal reason for the development of transportation in Arizona was to open routes to California. The most famous early road was El Camino de Diablo (The Devil's Highway), opened by the missionary Eusebio Kino in 1699. The first wagon road across Arizona was the Gila Trail (Cooke's Wagon Road), opened in 1846 as a southern route to California: Beale's Road was inaugurated in 1857. Also in 1857, the first stagecoach began operations. Until the coming of the railroads in the 1880s, however, the bulk of territorial commerce was by water transport on the Colorado River. Railroad construction reached its peak in the 1920s and declined rapidly thereafter.
Railroad trackage totaled 1,909 rail mi (3,072 km) in 2000, with ten railroads operating in the state. The state's two Class I railroads, Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific, controlled about two-thirds of Arizona's total rail miles. In 1998, the top rail tonnage commodities originating from within the state included metallic ores and glass and stone. That year, over half the rail tonnage terminating within the state was coal/coke. Amtrak provides limited passenger service through Flagstaff, Kingman, and other cities in the north, and through Tucson, Phoenix, and Yuma on the southern route.
In 2000, the state had 55,195 mi (88,827 km) of public streets and roads, of which 36,989 mi (59,528 km) were classified as rural and 18,206 mi (29,299 km) as urban. Interstate highways in Arizona totaled 1,168 mi (1,879 km). Of the 3,794,538 motor vehicles registered in 2000, there were 2,163,141 automobiles, 1,626,803 trucks, and 4,594 buses. There were 3,433,995 licensed drivers in 2000.
Arizona had 195 airports and 104 heliports in 2002. The leading air terminal was Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport; Tucson International Airport ranked second.