Good morning! Today, an accident at a construction site is just the latest setback for São Paulo’s slowly expanding subway. The government hopes to sell off the Port of Santos, Latin America’s busiest. Is the Bolsonaro family gathering data on Brazilians through new app?
Collapse highlights struggles of São Paulo subway
A construction site for a new subway line in São Paulo collapsed on Tuesday morning, opening a crater in the Marginal Tietê expressway, one of the city’s busiest. The incident left no victims, but forced part of the highway to be shut down, creating massive congestion in a city where traffic jams are already common.
- “There is no contingency plan for 500,000 cars a day,” said Ricardo Teixeira, the city’s top transit official.
What happened. A leak in sewage pipes close to the construction site led the ground to collapse and open a crater, although authorities disagree on what caused the problem in the first place. The São Paulo sanitation company says a tunnel boring machine broke the duct, while the state government says it collapsed on its own.
Why it matters. The case epitomizes São Paulo’s (and Brazil’s) struggles to implement rapid transit systems. Attempts have invariably dealt...