Rodoanel Mário Covas
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Rodoanel Mário Covas is the planned (and partially built) Greater São Paulo Beltway, around the largest megalopolis of Brazil. Upon its completion, it will have a length of 172 km, with a radius of approximately 23 km from the geographical center of the city. It has been named after Mário Covas, who was mayor of the city of São Paulo (1983-1985) and a state governor (1994-1998/1998-2001) until his untimely death by cancer.
Built with state-of-the-art road engineering technologies, the West Segment currently interconnects the Anhangüera, Bandeirantes, Castelo Branco, Raposo Tavares and Régis Bittencourt state and federal highways. It crosses through the municipalities of Osasco, Carapicuiba, Barueri,Santana de Parnaíba, Embu, Cotia and São Paulo. The current segment has 3 tunnels, one among them being the largest and widest one in Brazil, with 1,6 km, 62 viaducts and 6 bridges.
Upon its completion, estimated for 2010, it will also interconnect the Imigrantes and Anchieta (South Segment), Presidente Dutra, Fernão Dias and Ayrton Senna (East Segment) main highways, besides many other smaller ones, thus completely surrounding a large area and constituting by far the mightiest road transportation hub in Latin America.
On September 15th 2006, the State Government announced the start of construction for the most important South Segment, which will serve as a corridor for more than 250,000 trucks per month which must go through the city of São Paulo in order to interconnect to or from the city port of Santos. The construction is expected to take almost 5 years, mainly due to the complex urban zones and difficult terrain it will cross (including a series of artificial lakes and dams and a mountainous region). The expected cost will be 1 billion reais, approximately. Meanwhile, in order to decrease the problems caused by intracity traffic, a collaboration between the state and municipal governments of São Paulo will enlarge the current avenues and establish a higher speed route.
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[edit] Importance
The São Paulo Beltway is considered a major strategic investment for the efficiency of road transportation in the economically most important region of the country. Greater São Paulo has an economy the size of Mexico's and concentrates 65% of gross industrial product (GIP) and 45% of gross domestic product (GDP) of the country. It is a megacity, with a population in excess of 20 million inhabitants, and more than 6 million vehicles. Most of the cargo transported by road or transiting between other modalities (such as to and from the port of Santos) pass today through the city of São Paulo, generating incredible traffic jams at all hours of the day, with a loss of more than 1,7 billion hours per year (more than 25 million trips a day). Although the city has an inner beltway (called the Marginais system), it is 30 years old and with a totally saturated capacity, so that the traffic connecting the highways was forced to pass through it, until the construction of the Mário Covas Beltway. It is estimated already that more tham 30% of the Marginais traffic was relieved as a consequence.
The importance of the Beltway is underlined by the population approval, with a recent poll (June 2004) showing 85% approval rates, 86% of users deeming it a very important resource, and 80% of positive aspects. More than 300,000 vehicles (78% of them being automobiles) use the Beltway every day. The system has an estimated peak capacity of 700,000 vehicles per day.
[edit] Management
The São Paulo Beltway is managed by DERSA, the state-owned road transport company and isn't a toll road, so far.
