Newsroom and Camila Maciel      Reporter Agência Brasil

Ssão Paulo – This morning, after a surprise strike by workers in the city train and subway systems, commuters in São Paulo had to deal with the largest congestion in history. According to the traffic engineering company (“Companhia de Engenharia de Tráfego”), at 10:00 am, no less than 249 kilometers of slow traffic was observed. The record was 191 kilometers on November 4, 2004. This year’s record, before today, was 168 kilometers on April 27.

City authorities announced that the prohibition on the circulation of cars with license plates ending in certain numbers had been suspended (“rodízio de veículos”). However, at least one serious accident with a truck on a freeway (“Marginal Pinheiros”) had created a huge traffic jam there. At the same time, a standby emergency plan went into action as more buses were put into circulation.

Around 4 million people use the São Paulo public transportation system each working day.

Another problem appeared on the far eastern side of the city, the most populous area of São Paulo, where angry commuters who could not get the subway blocked a main highway (“Avenida Radial Leste”). It seems that subway cars were running in some parts of the city sporadically, but had stopped all together on the eastern side of the city. Police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the protest.

A commuter, Raquel dos Santos, 31, criticized the police. “We are workers, not bandits,” she said.

The commander of the police said they fired at the protesters because they threw objects at the police.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English

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