Traffic nightmares in Brazil

One need only look at what's happening all over Brazil with the onset of Carnaval to get a good idea of how much worse it's going to be in just over 3 months from now when the World Cup begins.

Rio, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Cuiabá, Fortaleza, Manaus and all the other venues for World Cup matches can't even cope with the traffic they have right now, much less the increased traffic that they're going to experience during the games.

Friday morning CCR the body responsible for administration of the Ponte Rio-Niterói reported that it was taking motorists 90 minutes (one hour and a half) to cross the bridge; a crossing that normally takes one quarter of that.

São Paulo experienced gridlock with people heading to the Baixada Santista. This happens every single year and clearly the problems aren't going to be resolved in the 102 days remaining until the kickoff of the World Cup.

The mayors of all these cities put on their brave "game faces" and pretend that everything is going to be just fine despite the fact they're doing absolutely nothing. The traffic woes are going to vanish just like magic. Right!

I'm so glad that I'm 4 hours from Rio where I won't have to worry about traffic and I certainly don't plan to go anywhere near any of these other cities until long after the World Cup fades into distant memory.

To quote verbatim almost every Brazilian I know...... "Imagine durante o Copa!"

Cheers,
William James Woodward, Expat-blog Experts Team