A failure on line 3-red of the São Paulo subway turned the journey home of those who need public transport in the capital of São Paulo into chaos, in the early evening of this Thursday (1st). Passengers were trapped on the trains for almost an hour, and many people had to get out of the carriages and walk along the tracks, including in tunnels.
According to the Metro, the line had to be stopped for around 2h30 due to a train that had emergency devices activated by passengers, in the section between Belém and Bresser stations, in the east zone.
“These actions require the emptying of the train, which began at 6:34 pm, to remove it from circulation, in order to normalize the devices,” he stated.
At 7:40 pm, circulation was reestablished on the stretch between Itaquera and Tatuapé stations, in the east zone. It was fully normalized at 9:05 pm, according to the company.
As a safety measure, traffic was interrupted and power was removed, until all passengers were removed, according to the company. Access to the stations was closed due to the line being stopped.
Inside the carriages, passengers went into despair when the train stopped, the lights went out and the air conditioning was turned off. Users forced the door, and the subway made the evacuation official.
Banker Juliana Roos, 33, says that she and other passengers spent more than ten minutes in the dark. “People started to feel sick, there was a pregnant woman inside the carriage, a girl fainted, and that was the moment when they started breaking the windows to get some ventilation.”
“And then, when a little ventilation started to come in, people started to get out onto the track because of the heat inside the carriage”, he reports.
Victor Durante, 29, ecommerce analyst, who took the subway at Marechal station, in the center of São Paulo, also reports moments of tension. “I started to get worried about people kicking doors, the shouting,” he says. “I thought someone was going to lose their mind.”
“I spent more than two hours here,” says Willyan Augusto Assunção, 33, commercial manager. He claims to have entered Belém station at 6pm, until he received a warning that there were people on the road. According to Willyan, passengers were instructed to get off at Bresser station, where they waited for information until around 8pm.
According to Metrô, because of the problem, the speed of line 1-blue had to be reduced, to balance the flow in the transfer from Sé station, in the center of São Paulo.
Videos published on the social network X, (formerly Twitter) show people getting off the train and walking along the tracks near Belém station.
Another passenger posted on social media that the train had been stopped for more than 25 minutes inside the tunnel between Belém and Bresser stations. A woman reported that there were people fighting and feeling sick.
At República station, hundreds of passengers gathered in front of one of the exits.
Metro said it activated the Paese system (Support Plan between Companies in Emergency Situations) between Carrão and Barra Funda stations during the period in which the line was stopped.
At the time when the first reports of problems began, the company’s president, Julio Castiglioni, was participating in Panama City in the round table “The challenges of public companies in Latin America and the Caribbean”, within the program of the CAF Latin America Conference and Caribbean: A region of global solutions.
According to the report, the executive was informed about the problems on Thursday night.
Uber price more than doubles from the center to Tatuapé
An alternative sought by thousands of passengers who were unable to board, rides with app cars had their prices more than double due to high demand.
Simulations carried out by Folha for trips with Uber from the central region to three points in the east zone outside the expanded center cost more than R$100.
At 8pm, the ride from the República metro station, in the center, to Guaianases, in the far east, cost R$ 155. Departing from the same station in the central region, the slightly shorter trip, to Itaquera, cost R$ 130 If the option were to disembark at Tatuapé, on the edge of the expanded center, the price charged would be R$100.
In a note, the company Uber reported that the price becomes dynamic and the value of the trip may become more expensive than usual for a given route when demand in a given area is greater than the number of drivers circulating in the region at that time. .
Dynamic pricing is applied, according to Uber, to encourage more drivers to connect to the app and so users have a car whenever they need it. When supply rises again, prices return to normal.
Uber also stated that, in any case, the dynamic price is informed to the user at the time the trip is requested.
RATE INCREASE AND STRIKES
Since January 1st, the Metro fare has increased to R$5. The value of R$4.40 was the same since January 2020, despite inflation in the period being 26% (R$5.55). The 13.6% increase is only behind the 16.6% increase established in 2015.
Governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans) justified the increase by saying that subsidies for rail transport, for CPTM and Metro, were reaching “the point of unbearability”.
The governor said that, even with the readjustment, he will provide an important resource in terms of subsidies. “We can no longer take money from other areas that are priorities. We are seeing challenges in health, public safety. We can no longer take [destas áreas] to subsidize transport activity. We have to balance the account a little”, he declared, when announcing the increase.
Last year, Tarcísio faced three strikes involving subway workers. On November 28, there was a unified strike by the Metro and CPTM (Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos), which was joined by Sabesp (State Sanitation Company), public school teachers and Fundação Casa employees. The strikers called for the suspension of ongoing privatization projects in the state, such as Sabesp, CPTMe Metro lines.
In October, a protest carried out by the category also targeted the concession of services to the private sector. The first strike this year took place in March and, although it included the end of outsourcing and privatization on the agenda, it also contained an argument directly related to labor rights.