Governor Cabral announces deal with Portuguese company to run system
Lisbon – Rio de Janeiro Governor Sergio Cabral announced today in Lisbon an agreement with the Portuguese company Carris to restore the Santa Teresa Trolley to service by sometime in 2013. The trolley system has not run since an accident on 27 August 2011 which destroyed a trolley car, injured 56 passengers and killed 6.
Santa Teresa Accident (photo: globo)
In Lisbon, Cabral signed with Jose Manuel Silva Rodrigues, president of the company Carris, which runs the trams in the Portuguese capital, a technical cooperation agreement for the system restoration. Carris ran the Santa Teresa Trolley, or Bonde, as it is known locally, during the 1940s.
According to Cabral, the initial investment to restore the system will about U.S. $23 million. “We will, during the entire year of 2012, replace the track, the equipment and purchase new trolley cars. We have allocated, for starters, this money to restore the system. In 2013, for sure, we will deliver this gift to the city,” the governor told O Globo.
Two weeks ago, technicians from Carris were in Rio to analyze the system. “There is a great similarity between the hills of Lisbon and the hills of Santa Teresa. The coexistence of pedestrians and streetcars, the curves, the narrow streets. It is all very similar and the company believes it will do very well in Rio,” said Cabral.
Santa Teresa is a neighborhood in the center of the city of Rio de Janeiro. Located on the top of Santa Teresa hill, it is famous for its narrow, winding streets and European architecture. Built in the 1750s on Desterro hill, the area centered around the Santa Teresa Convent.
Later on, in the early 19th and 20th centuries it was an upper class community with many magnificent mansions, many of which are still standing, having been converted to boutique tourist hotels. In recent decades the area has become a hotspot for artists, galleries, studios, bars and restaurants.
Santa Teresa's colorful history includes being home to Ronald Arthur “Ronnie” Biggs, known for his role in the Great Train Robbery of 1963, who spent 36 years living in exile, many of those in Santa Teresa, where he would recount his exploits for tourists in exchange for drinks and money at the local watering hole.
Read also: More Articles from Brazil Dispatch
Brazilian online news source for this article: O Globo
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