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If you think you've seen chaos before, let me introduce you to THE chaos: the Rodoanel Mário Covas. The project that began with great promises to ease traffic in the city of São Paulo is now an epic example of delays, scandals and astronomical expenses. And yes, it is still far from being finished.
Back in 1998, then-governor Mário Covas announced with great fanfare the start of construction of the Rodoanel Mário Covas, a grandiose project that was designed to solve traffic problems in the city of São Paulo by diverting the flow of trucks and heavy vehicles away from the congested Tietê and Pinheiros highways. The 180 km long project was supposed to be completed in 2006. Yes, it was supposed to be.
The original idea was for this project to function as a “ring road” that would surround the metropolitan region, making life easier for drivers and reducing the constant traffic jams. The plan was clear: four sections connecting highways, more than 60 viaducts, dozens of tunnels, billions of reais invested. All in 8 years.
But, 24 years later, the work has not yet been completed, and traffic in the city of São Paulo continues to be hellish.
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The soap opera of the four sections of the Mário Covas Beltway
The first section, the West, was opened in 2002, with its 32 km. Up until then, everything was reasonably in order. But, like every good plot, it was in the second chapter, or rather, section, that the drama began. The South section, started in 2006, was only completed in 2010, and the cost was already well above what was expected. The East section, in turn, started in 2011 and was completed in 2015, accumulating more delays and more millions.
Now, the northern section is the cherry on the cake of the mess. With 44 km still under construction, corruption scandals involving construction companies, embezzlement of funds and an exponential increase in costs – going from R$9,9 billion to an impressive R$26 billion, it has been dragging on since 2013. The most recent forecast? 2022. But who believes that?
Corruption and a stumbling block (literally)
In 2018, the Federal Police launched “Operation Pedra no Caminho”, who discovered an overbilling scheme which involved “unforeseen” services for the removal of large stones (the famous boulders) during the works. Something that, according to investigations, should have already been foreseen in the initial project. The result? The suspicion of a diversion of R$600 million in the northern section alone.
This situation raised an inevitable question: could all this money spent on endless works on the Mário Covas Beltway not have been better used in other solutions for traffic in the city of São Paulo?
Is the Rodoanel still the solution?
In 2024, many people are wondering whether the Mário Covas Beltway still makes sense or whether it was already obsolete. Construction took so long that, in the meantime, São Paulo needed other interventions, such as new lanes on the highways and avenues to try to ease the flow of traffic. These interventions might not have been necessary if the Beltway had been completed within the original deadline.
The truth is that the focus on road transport seems to be outdated in a city that urgently needs investment in public transport. Imagine if these R$26 billion had been invested in subway and train lines? Not to mention that freight transport continues to share space with passengers, further worsening the intervals and efficiency of CPTM lines.
Is there light at the end of the tunnel?
Traffic in the city of São Paulo seems like an unsolvable problem, but there are alternatives. An urban toll, for example, could reduce the number of vehicles on the streets by up to 30%, although the average Brazilian would probably tear his or her hair out at the mere thought of yet another fee. Another option would be to massively expand bus lanes, tripling their length to truly compete with private cars.
9But, in the end, the Mário Covas Beltway is a symbol of an era of great promise and little implementation. Today, it represents an outdated management model, focused on road transport, which has neglected the real needs of a modern metropolis like São Paulo. Now, we just have to wait and see if this work will one day be completed and if it will have any positive impact on the daily chaos of living and driving in the largest city in the country.
The ring road option and inverted priority, when it was necessary to give priority to Metropolitan traffic, the most significant stretch in the north, despite the lower volume of traffic being predicted, but the most useful option to relieve the marginal roads. Relieving does not mean eliminating, it is more to alleviate, this is what the ring road did. The columnist knows little about things, even because she knows nothing about the origins of the studies well before the Ring Road Option. It is also necessary to remember that there is no single vaccine that can cure the madness of our urban occupation within the **** master plan…..