TRANSOCEÂNICA CONSTRUCTION IS COMPLETED

After five years, construction of the BHLS (Bus with a High Level of Service) transport corridor, by the Transoceânica Consortium of Carioca Engenharia and Constran, has been concluded. The Transoceânica transport corridor includes wide lanes for light vehicles, an exclusive lane for buses and 16 km of new bike paths. It has been in full operation since the second half of 2019. It has two terminal stations and 11 intermediate stations, with Charitas Station integrated into the Ferryboat Station.

The transport corridor is 9.3 km long and runs through 12 neighborhoods in Niterói, covering and benefiting approximately 125,000 people. The journey between Engenho do Mato and Charitas, which would usually take an hour, now takes 20 minutes.

For Carlos Eduardo Medeiros, Carioca representative in the consortium, “Of all the benefits that the Transoceânica corridor has brought to the quality of life of the local population, the Charitas-Cafubá Tunnel is the best thing left by the project. After waiting almost 50 years, it became a reality and is even one of the most modern tunnels in Rio de Janeiro.” The 1.35-km double-gallery tunnel is monitored by a modern and exclusive operations center. It features 1,100 LED lamps, 40 cameras and 80 emergency telephones.

In terms of quality of life for the population of Região Oceânica, the Transoceânica road is a historic construction work in itself, but it is not limited to the transport corridor and tunnels. It also includes urban development works on the roads running along the main corridor, as well as new traffic lights throughout, and a new lighting structure consisting of 1,206 poles with LED lamps.

It also included new macro drainage with an extension of 4.8 km of concrete galleries directly connected to Lagoa de Piratininga. This effort finally solved a decades-old problem, which was the constant flooding in the rainy season at the Piratininga Junction and at the entrances to the Santo Antônio and Maralegre districts.