PONTE RIO-NITERÓI
Address: Ponte Presidente Costa e Silva – trecho da BR-101, rodovia Governador Mário Covas, Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Themes: Civil and Corporate Participation
Translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Snyder
The Rio-Niterói Bridge, which links the cities of Rio and Niterói, was one of the main construction projects carried out during the dictatorship. Built between 1969-1974, the bridge has the official name of dictator Artur da Costa e Silva, serving as both emblem and example of the regime’s propaganda. The name is representative of a figure who represents one the harshest, most authoritarian periods of Brazilian history, as it honors the president who signed the Fifth Institutional Act (AI-5). Nowadays, there is an intense movement demanding a change of name. The construction itself exhibits several signs of the dictatorship, such as the participation of soldiers in the project management, the profiting of businessmen affiliated with the regime, the strengthening of the highway transportation model, and neglect for worker health and security. There were several injuries and illnesses associated with the construction, and dozens of laborers and engineers were killed during the project’s completion.
During the dictatorship, infrastructure projects such as viaducts, bridges, and overpasses proliferated. With civil society gagged and projects implemented without regard for public support, “strange cathedrals” were erected in major Brazilian cities. Viaducts such as those of Rio and of São Paulo created large transportation routes, to the detriment of surrounding neighborhoods. Some projects represent the authoritarian context of the dictatorship: in Rio, the Paulo de Frontin Overpass not only degraded the Rio Comprido neighborhood, but also resulted in 26 deaths caused by the falling of a container during construction; the Lilás thoroughfare, an expressway between the Santa Bárbara Tunnel and the Santo Cristo neighborhood that includes the 31 de Março Viaduct, destroyed the Catumbi neighborhood; Perimetral Avenue, downtown, defaced and devalued the port. In São Paulo, one example is the Cebolão (Presidente Costa e Silva Overpass), which also degraded the downtown area of the city.
The Rio-Niterói Bridge is also representative of how the dictatorship opted for a highway transport model, as it was a component of the National Highway Plan. The model was clearly stated in public policy guidelines and in other projects including the Trans-Amazonian, Rio-Santos, and Northern Perimeter highways, in addition to the expansion, paving, and remodeling of highways like the Fernão Dias, Régis Bittencourt, and Belém-Brasília. The model was sustained by private interests of economic groups such as the large automotive industry multinationals established in the country and the manufacturers who supplied equipment and materials for the highway construction, in addition to Brazilian public works contractors specializing in highway construction since the Juscelino Kubitschek period.
Since the first road-linking projects between Rio and Niterói that started back in the 19th century, there has been debate over whether a tunnel or a bridge would be the better means of connecting the two cities. This debate continued until just before and even during the building of the bridge, when members of the government suggested that a railway tunnel could complete the connection. Despite authorization from the National Department of Highways (DNER) and other agencies, the tunnel did not move forward. The choice in favor of the bridge was made by the Ministry of Transportation, citing lower costs than the underground connection. Before its construction, ferries transported up to 54 vehicles each trip in the crossing between Rio and Niterói.
During the Castello government, the Funding Authority for Studies and Projects (FINEP) was tasked with contracting the Rio-Niterói connection project. The agency consulted three U.S. firms, causing the Engineering Club to claim in protest that Brazilian companies were capable of developing plans for the project. During the Costa e Silva government, the project was transferred to the DNER. With the plans settled in 1968, it was agreed that the bridge would be 13.9 km long, with 8.9 km over the bay, making it the third-longest in the world. The Navy and Air Force wanted to limit the bridge’s height. Ultimately, a compromise was reached and the height of the central gap was set at 72 meters.
The National Congress approved the construction in the form of a bill sent to dictator Arthur da Costa e Silva, which was signed on October 16th, 1968, becoming Law no. 5512/68. The work relied partially on foreign financing, with a loan from a group of British banks led by the Rothschild family. The English financing of a sum of 31 million pounds (equivalent at the time to Cr$ 438 million or R$ 674 million in current money IPC-SP/FIPE) brought Queen Elizabeth II to the country to break ground on the project in December 1968. Of the three consortiums contracted to complete construction, one was disqualified, and the Rio-Niterói Construction Consortium (CCRN), composed of the Brazilian Road Construction Company (CCBE), Ferraz Cavalcanti, Servix, and Improvements and Construction Company (EMEC) was ultimately chosen to complete the task.The contract was signed on December 4th, 1968 – nine days before AI-5 – at a cost of Cr$ 238 million (equivalent to R$ 366 million in 2014 values, according to IPC-SP/FIPE), and the initial deadline was March 1971.
Construction began in December of 1968 and encountered a series of problems, mainly in the initial phase of building the foundations. Technical difficulties and work accidents were constant, concentrated in the major problems that arose with the support structures on the bottom of the Guanabara Bay. Without the use of modern technological innovations developed from deep-water exploration of petroleum, the foundations were constructed with caissons. The studies completed on the bottom of the bay indicated a maximum depth of 15 meters, but in the area of the central gap, the riverbed was found to be more than 40 meters deep.
Facing continued delays and a lack of progress in installing the bridge foundations, the dictatorship took a measure of force. On January 26th, 1971, the dictator Emílio Garrastazu Médici signed a decree expropriating the construction consortium of the bridge, which included all of the equipment and material used in the work. Everything was nationalized, and the consortium tried, unsuccessfully, to reverse the decision in court. The consortium that had landed in second place was contracted. For Cr$ 438 million or R$ 674 million in current values (IPC-SP/ FIPE), the Guanabara Construction Consortium Ltd. (CCGL), formed by Camargo Corrêa, Mendes Júnior, and Rabello and Sérgio Marques Souza, took over the project. The work, nevertheless, would be completed by a separate contract for each administration – different from venture contracts, which were more common in public works at the time.l A state-owned company, The Construction and Exploration of the Presidente Costa e Silva Bridge Company (ECEX), was created to handle the project. It was subordinate to DNER, which contracted the services out to consortium contractors, paying a profit margin for each service. The contractors complained about this system, overseen by Colonel João Carlos Guedes.
The project ran through the peak of the dictatorship and caused various accidents, many fatal. Ten thousand workers and two hundred engineers worked on the endeavor. Photos of the time reveal the little regard for worker safety, picturing workers with rubber sandals and shorts, shirtless and smoking while they hammered or carried objects. Hardhats and boots were scarce. The number of deaths is unclear. Officially, 33 people died during the project, but some estimate up to 400 casualties, including deaths on the pillars. The engineer Bruno Contarini from the Rabello contractor, contests this version of events:
The idea that the workers were buried in concrete is a myth. During the most serious accident, still with the first consortium, there wasn’t even concrete when one of the foundations toppled over during the load test and eight people died. If any bodies were not rescued, it’s because they disappeared in the bay, not because they were buried in concrete (Cited by Otávio e Góes, 2012).
The worker Raimundo Miranda, who worked on the project, notes the little regard for safety and even for the deaths:“If someone died, we quickly forgot and continued the work. Management came quickly to remove (the bodies). Then, we moved on.”
Despite the problems, the project advanced with the new consortium under the nationalized system. New foreign equipment was ordered, and the foundations were completed with the assistance of German drill rig machines. The work continued on at an accelerated pace in the final stages, and the bridge was inaugurated at the beginning of 1974, three years behind schedule. The minister Mário Andreazza took the first car ride across it on January 15th, 1974, and the dictator Emílio Garrastazu Médici led the formal dedication of the bridge on March 4th of the same year. During the ceremony, Andreazza said:
The Presidente Costa e Silva Bridge, a monument to the Revolution of 1964, a great longitudinal coastal highway over the sea, the BR-101, is a majestic endeavor that represents: the decision of the Brazilian people to overcome all obstacles to achieve full economic and social development; the capacity of our engineering to study and execute undertakings of the greatest complexity; the dedication and competence of the Brazilian worker, whose spirit, even in the most dramatic moments, never faltered, having, on the contrary, finished stronger than ever because of the very setbacks that he faced (Cited by Otávio e Góes, 2012).
It is interesting to note that Andreazza directly compared the bridge to the regime established through the 1964 coup d’état. In 1999, Eliseu Resende, acting as a federal deputy and the general director of DNER, did the opposite of what Andreazza did when he made a tribute for the 25-year anniversary of the Rio-Niterói Bridge in a National Congress session. He rightly tried to disassociate the construction of the bridge from the dictatorship:
Although the project was initiated while the military regime was at its peak, the decision to build the bridge was far from an authoritarian one. If only public investment had been, in our history, marked by the same amount of planning and the same legal, democratic, and transparent procedures that preceded the approval of the project and authorized its fulfillment. […] Unlike typical public works in Brazil, the undertaking was completed with less than a year of delay and with an increase in costs of no more than 10% of previously estimated expenses (Cited by Octávio e Góes, 2012).
The bridge traffic exceeded expectations, and within the first year, 20,000 vehicles crossed it each day. The highway model implemented in the country’s transportation system generated heavy demand for the bridge. Soon, the daily flow reached 100,000, nowadays reaching about 150,000 vehicles. The prediction was that the toll charge would compensate for the cost of the bridge within 20 years, but the value was reached in eight years, and since then the toll has been eliminated. In 1995, the bridge was privatized, a toll charge reinstated, and is still managed by contractors today.
The total cost of the project was never ascertained, and the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), even during the dictatorship, tried unsuccessfully to establish a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) in Congress to investigate the issue. The Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) tried to determine the cost of the undertaking, but the investigations were shelved. In 2014, the Public Prosecutor’s Office initiated judicial action to modify the name that makes one recall “a legacy of authoritarianism and belligerence.” Nevertheless, in December of 2014, a judge blocked the name change via judicial means, asserting that the decision must be made by society through its representatives. In the same year, the National Truth Commission proposed a name change to Deputado Rubens Paiva Bridge. Congressman Chico Alencar’s (PSOL – RJ) proposal to change the bridge’s name to the Herbert de Souza-Betinho Bridge was approved by the Chamber of Deputies Committee of Culture in November of 2014. The measure must still be approved in the Constitutional Committee, Chamber Justice, and the Federal Senate. Therefore, the dispute over the name change of the Rio-Niterói Bridge continues in the Legislative Branch.