When I moved here to Porto Alegre, in 2001, I saw on newspaper they were going to expand the Trensurb metro Line 1 up to Novo Hamburgo in one end and the Line 2 endpoint station would be just a couple of blocks from home, and all that stuff would be ready by 2006. Sounded too good to be true.
And it was. The Line 1 is still 9 Km away from Novo Hamburgo and the Line 2 only exists in our most optimistic dreams. Meanwhile, the Kaohsiung Metro in Taiwan was expanded by 20 Km in those 5 years. The Nanjing Metro, in China, was non-existent in 2001 and now it has 17 Km.
And we can't even say there's no money. It's "only" US$1 billion! And considering the expansions would attract 450,000 new passengers/day, and each ticket costs R$ 1.60 (US$ 0.75), that'd be US$337,500 per day. And not to mention the other benefits, such as reducing traffic (thus reducing pollution and public health expenses), accidents, commute time and it's simply much more economic than going by bus.
Oh well...I only hope I can see those trains around here before I die.
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