Construction work around the Castelão stadium is behind schedule.
The first arena to be completed among all the host cities of the Confederations Cup, the Fortaleza stadium has visible problems in its vicinity, such as those related to mobility; works will be completed four days before the first game in the capital.
Camila Maciel
Reporter from Agência Brasil
São Paulo - On one hand, the Castelão stadium, which will host the Confederations Cup games in Fortaleza (CE), was the first arena to be completed among all the host cities; on the other hand, upon leaving the stadium, potential mobility problems become visible. This assessment comes from architect and urban planner Renato Pequeno, professor in the Department of Architecture at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC). "The area surrounding Castelão is not ready. When you think about how to get to the stadium, that's where the problem arises," he said in an interview with Agência Brasil.
According to the Extraordinary Municipal Secretariat for the World Cup (Secopafor), the mobility works in the vicinity of the Castelão stadium – planned for the Confederations Cup – will be delivered on June 15th, four days before the first game in Fortaleza, which takes place on the 19th. The agency highlighted that the commitment made with the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) for these games is the completion of the widening of Avenida Alberto Craveiro and the construction of a roundabout next to the stadium. Secopafor reported that 80% of this work is complete.
The remaining mobility projects, under the responsibility of Secopafor, will only be completed for the World Cup. The agreement with FIFA includes the construction of a tunnel under the roundabout that will connect Avenida Paulino Rocha (43% complete) to Via Expressa (5% complete). This road connects the stadium area to the hotel zone of the capital. Works on Avenida Dedé Brasil, also near the Castelão stadium, are 9% complete.
According to the secretariat, the traffic disruptions at two of the 25 events held at the stadium since its reopening in December were related to the ongoing construction work on Avenida Alberto Craveiro. The agency hopes that, with the completion of the work before the games, these difficulties with major traffic jams in the area will be overcome. The disruptions occurred mainly at an international concert and a football match that drew crowds of over 50 people. The Castelão stadium's capacity after the renovation is 63.093 seats.
In addition to the roadworks to be carried out by the municipality, the state government is committed to building two more stations on the capital's metro line and the Parangaba-Mucuripe light rail system (VLT), which will connect the hotel zone to the stadium area. However, the expected completion date for these projects is the first quarter of 2014, before the World Cup games.
According to Renato Pequeno, even if these mobility projects are completed on schedule for the games, they do not address the main urban mobility challenges facing the city. He highlighted that Fortaleza's vehicle fleet has more than doubled in the last decade, going from 422,5 in 2003 to 854,3 in March of this year. "At the same time, there has been no expansion of the road system. Regardless of the World Cup, the city already had all these problems," he assessed.
The professor believes that, with the announcement in 2007 that the Confederations Cup games would take place in Brazil, there was a concentration of efforts and investments towards the renovation of the stadium and the construction and renovation of roads to facilitate access to the arena. "The mobility works serve the Castelão stadium as a destination and do not solve the major bottlenecks of the city," he said. He explained that the stadium is located in an intermediate area, in the middle of the city, and that the main problems are concentrated in the western and eastern regions of the municipality.
"We have a western part that is much denser and poorer, full of favelas and with many occupied areas. To the east there is a part that still has urban voids, an area that concentrates a good part of the shopping centers, areas where gated communities are expanding. It is the region where there is commerce geared towards the wealthier population and which continues the more verticalized area, on the seafront, which concentrates the hotels and the neighborhoods of the upper middle class," he described.
The urban planner said that real estate speculation is one of the results of this process of concentrated investment in this region. "With the implementation of these projects, these areas will be destined for a middle and upper-middle-income public. They remain unoccupied at the moment, serving speculation. In my view, these mobility projects would serve, or will serve in the future, the displacement of the population that comes to live in that direction," he assessed.
The social impact caused by these World Cup-related projects is also questioned by the professor. "These projects are leading to thousands of displacements. These families are being forced to live in more peripheral areas: the projects are generating social and territorial exclusion," he criticizes. According to the government of Ceará, approximately 2.140 families will have their properties totally or partially affected by the VLT (light rail) construction.
Among the reparation options offered to families, the state government indicated compensation, houses from the Minha Casa, Minha Vida Program, and units in a housing complex that, according to the agency, will have road, health, and leisure infrastructure.
Edited by: José Romildo