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Brazilians Continue the Long Wait for the World Cup Legacy

06/12/2015 - 21h17

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DIMMI AMORA
FROM BRASÍLIA

It is 6pm, on a hot Tuesday evening, and the domestic worker Katiana Mendes, 34, is trying to return home. Her day began at 6am.

In front of her stands Fortaleza's Papicu bus terminal, where passengers group along the curb. Mendes and others form a line, waiting for the 087 bus, which will take them to the Siqueira neighborhood.

A light rail service (known as VLT in its Portuguese abbreviation) was promised for 2013 as part of the 2014 World Cup legacy. These small trains, similar to streetcars, will cross Fortaleza from Parangaba to Mucuripe.

However, a year after the World Cup, the work is still unfinished, forcing some 90,000 commuters who live along the route between the terminal and Mendes' house to depend on the buses.

Across Brazil, some 22 infrastructure projects aimed at improving public transport in the World Cup host cities are behind schedule or paralyzed, and in some cases, work has not even begun.

This affects 2.5 million Brazilians like Mendes, who, rather than reaping the benefits of improved urban mobility, as was promised before the World Cup, continue to depend on overcrowded urban bus services.

There are 41 million people nationwide who use public transport on a daily basis, having to contend with overcrowding and poor quality services.

Just 10 million have access to better, high capacity systems, such as those promised before the World Cup. The figures here are from public transport associations.

When the 087 arrives, there is some pushing and shoving amongst passengers in the dispute for seats. Some even enter through the window in an attempt to obtain a good spot in the Caio Apache bus.

Mendes gives up and decides to wait for the next bus. "If I go in through there, I'll get hurt," she says.

LEGACY

Transport was the main argument used by Brazilian politicians - not least the Federal Government - to rebut accusations of overspending on stadiums in cities where local football clubs would struggle to fill them.

The twelve World Cup host cities chosen in 2009 were supposed to be examples for the improvement of urban mobility in Brazil, with abbreviations representing new solutions - such as BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) - becoming fashionable.

BRT is like a metro or underground but on road rather than rail, with exclusive bus lanes designed for larger and more sophisticated vehicles. BRT systems were promised for ten cities.

In five of the twelve cities, VLTs or monorails were promised. These services are capable, in theory, of carrying between two and five times as many passengers per journey than the buses.

"What we want is to improve the life of the Brazilian people, and in doing so, we're going to create excellent conditions for the World Cup," said the then president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2010, as he launched the program of construction work for the tournament.

Adriano Vizoni/Folhapress
In five of the twelve cities, VLTs or monorails were promised, but none of the five VLT or BRT projects have been finished
In five of the twelve cities, VLTs or monorails were promised, but none of the five VLT or BRT projects have been finished

With a budget of R$11 billion (USD$3.5 billion), the program, known as the World Cup legacy, was supposed to be complete by the time Brazil kicked off against Croatia in the Itaquerão stadium, in São Paulo.

"Within the context of investing in urban mobility, I want to say that the Federal Government is extremely concerned with leaving a legacy after the World Cup. That's why we're financing a whole set of projects," said President Rousseff in October 2011.

However, progress on the projects was sluggish, with probable incompetence and negligence being mooted. There are also some suspicions of corruption.

Most of the work was announced without a project being drawn up, says Sérgio Magalhães, president of the Brazilian Institute of Architects. The costs which were estimated initially increased, and as a result, governments decided to prioritize the work that was essential for the World Cup.

"The projects that concerned the urban routine were marginalized," says Magalhães. In Fortaleza, the stadium was the first of the 12 to be ready for the World Cup, in December 2012. However, none of the five VLT or BRT projects have been finished.

Where improvements were not completed, authorities improvised. Temporary transport schemes, public holidays and other planning tricks ensured that fans managed to travel to and from the stadiums during the World Cup without any serious problems.

On July 13 2014, Philipp Lahm, the German captain, lifted the World Cup trophy in the Maracanã. The next day, it was back to reality for commuters in the nine host cities in which the work had not been completed on time.

At 6:20pm, another 087 bus leaves the Papicu terminal in Fortaleza. Once again, Katiana Mendes was unable to get on it, with crowds forcing her out. "Every day it's like this," she says with resignation, as she goes back to the line to wait for the next bus.

SUSPICIONS OF CORRUPTION

In Cuiabá, the VLT which was promised has yet to materialize, with work being paralyzed in December 2014.

The VLT scheme should not even have got off the ground. Technicians suggested that a BRT system would be more appropriate, but local politicians - including José Riva, former president of the state legislative assembly, currently in preventive custody on corruption charges - opted for the VLT.

The initial estimate for the project was R$700 million (USD$224 million) - more or less the cost of the Arena Pantanal, which was inaugurated in April 2014, though it has also yet to be finished.

When bidding opened, the cost of the VLT stood at R$1.5 billion (USD$481 million). Now, nobody knows exactly how much it will cost. According to official estimates, it will require at least R$2.5 billion (USD$801 million).

The Federal Government, which had agreed to lend R$400 million (USD$128 million), upped the loan to R$1.1 billion (USD$353 million) and made 90% of the funds available. An inquest in the state legislative assembly is currently investigating whether any of this money has been lost to corruption.

Less than 50% of the project has been completed. Beams are crooked; rails are not connected. It is unlikely to be finished before the next World Cup champions lift the trophy in Russia, in 2018.

Until then, the 40 new trains, bought at a cost of R$500 million (USD$160 million) from the Spanish company CAF, will gather dust in storage.

"Hope is the last thing to die," says the accountant Marilene Silva, 46, at a bus stop in the center of Cuiabá, looking at an unfinished stretch of VLT.

According to the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea), Marilene is part of the 25% of Brazilians who take more than an hour to go from home to work in urban areas, a figure up 30% from a decade ago.

Hidden behind the barriers which fence the unfinished construction work, retailers like Erika Drumond, 40, also lose out. Since 1995, her shop Casa da Matta has sold agricultural products in Várzea Grande, in Greater Cuiabá. Since the work on the VLT began, trade has fallen by 70%.

She has had to let go three of her five employees, and the only reason the shop hasn't closed is that she owns the property. Drumond says this a greater tragedy than the notorious 7-1 defeat of the seleção at the hands of Germany in the World Cup.

"It could have been 10-0, if the VLT was ready I wouldn't have cared," she says, gesturing towards the unfinished tracks in front of her business.

The consortium responsible, headed by the construction firm CR Almeida, says that work has not been finished because there were delays in the expropriations (just 123 of 328 were made) and in payments, the first of which took eight months.

Luiz Dario Millani, director of the consortium, says that the aim is to finish the project. He says that all the problems have been ironed out and the equipment purchased is being looked after in an appropriate manner. "There is no technical reason why the project shouldn't go ahead," he says.

EVICTIONS AND DEMOLITIONS

In Fortaleza, some residents have awoken to find a red cross marked on the doors of their houses. It was the sign that the properties would have to be demolished to make way for the VLT.

The VLT route goes through 22 poor communities, some of which have been there for more than 60 years, located alongside richer neighborhoods. It was decided that nearly 2000 families would lose their homes.

The former governor of Ceará, Cid Gomes (PROS), visited one of the communities to explain the reason for the evictions. He was booed out of the neighborhood.

Some of the families were to be transferred to social housing 20 kilometers away, though this was vetoed by the public lawyer Lino Fonteles, who monitored the process.

In the community Trilhos do Senhor, located in the upmarket Aldeota neighborhood, most of the houses were demolished, in spite of the fact that construction work on the VLT has been paralyzed since 2014.

Only half the work has been completed and it will take at least another two years to finish. Passarelli, the construction firm responsible for the project, said, "the contract was revoked on administrative grounds."

The next house marked for demolition is that belonging to the domestic worker Maria Elias Carneiro, 61. In May, she received R$31,000 (USD$9935) for the 30m2 house which she shares with her son and two grandchildren. However, she only received the money 14 months after the date agreed initially.

Adriano Vizoni/Folhapress
In the community Trilhos do Senhor, most of the houses were demolished, in spite of the fact that construction work on the VLT has been paralyzed
In the community Trilhos do Senhor, most of the houses were demolished, in spite of the fact that construction work on the VLT has been paralyzed

"If I had received the money at the time I signed the agreement, I would have bought a house for R$20,000. Where am I going to buy a house for R$30,000 now? You can't even get a wooden shack for that money these days," says Carneiro, who sleeps in a hammock suspended from the rafters above her grandchildren's bed.

She prefers not to leave her house, which could fall at any moment - it is supported by two other buildings which have been demolished. She also has to live with rats, cockroaches and scorpions, which have thrived in the debris of her neighbors' houses.

The government of Ceará says that the evictions depend "on the presentation of documents by residents, with failure to do so often slowing down the process."

The state has already attempted to open bidding for rights to continue the VLT on two occasions, but no company was interested in the project. In April, a third attempt was made.

If the VLT was operational, Mendes estimates that she would take 40 minutes to arrive home from work. Currently, it takes her an hour and a half.

Preferring not to have to stand for so long, Mendes lets another bus - packed full of commuters - leave without her. Only an hour after arriving at the bus station does Mendes manage to get one of the 30 seats available on the fourth bus.

The bus passes by the VLT building site. "We pass by and we can see that all that money was thrown down the toilet," she says.

In three cities, the construction work was finished, making life easier for nearly 600,000 commuters who use the BRT systems in Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Curitiba.

In Belo Horizonte, the MOVE system has reduced average journey time by 47%, from 75 to 40 minutes, while in Rio, the Transcarioca BRT has reduced time spent on the road by as much as 60%.

These were complex projects, which had occupied city governments for the last decade. The Transcarioca cost R$1.7 billion (USD$545 million), and required the construction of a cable-stayed bridge of nearly a kilometer in length above the Guanabara Bay.

In Belo Horizonte, one of the Move bus lanes cost R$713 million (USD$228 million), with R$306 million (USD$98 million) being spent on expropriations alone.

In contrast, in Porto Alegre, construction work on viaducts for the World Cup has still yet to be completed.

COUNTING THE COST

The cost of the World Cup, which already stands at R$34 billion (USD$10.9 billion), is only set to increase, thanks to the delays in the projects which were promised before the event.

In the case of the airports, the delays are going to produce a cost estimated at around R$1 billion (USD$320 billion).

In key airports which required larger structural work, the solution was privatization - as occurred in the cases of Brasília airport and Guarulhos, in São Paulo.

Given the lack of time to study the deals in the necessary detail (everything was done in just a year), the companies in charge of running the airports say they have not received them under the terms agreed. As a result, the company running Guarulhos is demanding more than R$500 million (USD$160 million) in compensation.

Elsewhere, Infraero (state airport company) promised to undertake construction work before the new administrators took over. In Galeão, in Rio de Janeiro, and Confins, in Belo Horizonte, it did not complete the work on time and will have to pay compensation.

In total, Infraero failed to complete 13 of the 25 projects that were supposed to be ready for the World Cup. It blames "the companies contracted, industrial action, work in areas that were operational" and also "big sporting events [] which prevented opening multiple projects."

The company highlights that even with the work incomplete, it was possible to meet demand at the World Cup.

For Magalhães, governments tend not to have qualified people in the projects and "they don't even know what to commission" when they make deals with companies.

From January 2015, 51 projects which were planned for the event (including projects unrelated to public transport) were officially named Projeto Legado ("Legacy Project"). This project is the responsibility of the engineer Dário Rais, who became mobility secretary at the Ministry of Cities.

The legacy consists of 12 completed works, 9 in partial operation, 25 still under construction and 5 which have been abandoned.

Rais argues that this cannot be called a failure, though it is clearly not a success either. For Rais, the cities had different levels of public service, which hindered projects. He has promised to be more present, in order to resolve any further problems.

"It was a learning experience. For the Olympics, we're working much more closely with the city [Rio de Janeiro], in order to avoid problems," he says.

While the work remains incomplete, the cities improvise. At the Praça Ipiranga, the main square in Cuiabá, the bus company fenced off an area where commuters pay the fare of R$3.10 (USD$1) before boarding the bus, imitating the system at the VLT station nearby which should have been finished.

In a 40-minute period, three buses went by, each with capacity for 86 people, until Marilene Silva, Várzea Grande resident, was able to enter. In contrast, the VLT trains stuck in storage have capacity for 400 people.

"We're naturally peaceful people, but we should complain more," she says.

Translated by TOM GATEHOUSE

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