By Chesney Hearst, Senior Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Rio’s Zona Sul (South Zone) neighborhood of Ipanema regained subway service on Sunday, December 15th, when the General Osório subway station reopened eight days earlier than previously scheduled. The station had been closed for ten months as part of the city’s expansion of the Metro Line 4, part of the Rio’s subway system extension project.
The closure left area workers, residents and visitors without one of the most reliable forms of transportion that service the upscale neighborhood. An estimated 30,000 Cariocas used the General Osório station on a daily basis, according to Metro Rio, the company that operates the service.
After its closure, metro users bound for Ipanema boarded Metro on the Surface buses, drove or took alternate bus routes. As a result, many overcrowded buses and traffic jams were reported throughout the city during the station’s ten-month closure. Renovations to the station include: new entrance ways, signs in both Portuguese and English, as well as maps highlighting major local points of interest and the bus lines that take travelers to those locations.
“The subway is critical for those who have come to Ipanema,” Ana Cristina Rangel, resident of Duque de Caxias in Baixada Fluminense, told G1 Globo adding that the “station is prettier.” The new General Osório station will have a total of four entrances in Ipanema at; General Osório, Jangadeiros, Sá Ferreira and Teixeira de Melo.
The Metro Rio extension project will continue will two new stations scheduled to open in Leblon, one in Gávea, one in São Conrado and one at the beginning of the Barra da Tijuca neighborhood. All construction work on Line 4 is scheduled to be completed by December 2015.
Read more (in Portuguese).
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