A strike on the metro and trains connecting peripheral areas and neighboring cities with the center of São Paulo caused enormous chaos this Tuesday in Brazil’s largest city. The strike was called by metro and rail unions to protest calls by state Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, an ally of Jair Bolsonaro and a staunch advocate of privatization, to hand over both the metro and the company in charge of commuter trains to the union. private sector: CPTM, Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos, as well as Sabesp, the company that supplies water to the entire metropolitan area.
Millions of people (the São Paulo metro alone carries 3.5 million passengers daily) faced enormous difficulties, such as getting to their appointments, work, school or doctor’s appointments, and most of them didn’t even get to do it. Crowds gathered outside subway and overground train stations early in the morning in the hope that the unions would call off the strike, as had happened in other calls, but this was not repeated today and much of that legion of angry passengers returned to the city. home I became despondent, realizing that I would not be able to get to my destination.
The entire fleet of public transport buses that had not gone on strike, a total of more than 14 thousand vehicles, was taken out onto the streets, but clearly could not cope with the flow of passengers, which had greatly increased due to the non-operation of other modes of transport. transport. There were riots and even fights in several parts of the city, fueled by the anger of those who missed meetings due to the strike, but nothing more serious was reported.
Traffic in Sao Paulo, already usually chaotic, got even worse as thousands of people who own cars but usually use public transport for their trips were forced to move their cars out of the garage this Tuesday, further increasing congestion. CET, the traffic management company responsible for managing traffic in the city, recorded 598 km of traffic jams at 8am, summing up all the routes that had traffic jams, much more than on Tuesday last week, when traffic jams did not stop during the same time there were 302 km.
The strike, which began from the first minute of Tuesday, is expected to last until at least midnight. Until then, on Tuesday evening, unions will hold new meetings to decide whether to end the strike or extend it until Wednesday.
Author: Domingos Grilo Serrinha This correspondent in Brazil
Source: CM Jornal
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