Rodoanel Mario Covas: Actors, Arenas and Processes

Author(s)

Rodrigo Faria Gonçalves Iacovini

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU/SBI)
• Defense date: 2013-03-27

Examining board members

Raquel Rolnik; Eduardo Cesar Leão Marques; Orlando Alves dos Santos Junior

• Advisor: Raquel Rolnik

Abstract

As an idea and urbanistic practice, the Rodoanel was born many decades before being actually initiated, fruit of the progressive technical and political construction of a radioconcentric model of circulation and urban expansion that still structuring the São Paulo Metropolitan Area, based in a rodoviarist culture of priorization of individual transport upon wheels and in the opening of expansion and real estate valorization fronts deeply interlaced with private interests. The objective of this work is to unveil, in this context, the actors, arenas and processes responsible for the definition and implementation of the project. Starting from the analysis of documentation, administrative acts, articles from newspapers and interviews; it was possible to conclude that the main actor in the definition and implementation of the project was the Government of the State of São Paulo. With the beginning of the Mário Covas administration in 1994, the state starts to develop actions and articulations in the sense of making feasible the project, with the aims of building a mark of the administration, heat up the state\'s economy and satisfy his commitment of building a new road. Other actors (federal government, municipalities of the SPMA, organized civil society and the construction companies) also participated in the trajectory of decision and implementation of the project, under the leadership of the State\'s Government. For the relationship with each one of them, the State uses/mobilizes different spaces and strategies, individualizing the time and the objects of the negotiation. With some, mainly the Federal Government and the São Paulo Municipality, direct negotiations are conducted between the heads of Executive, targeting the inclusion of federal and municipal funds in exchange of the participation in the execution of the project, a potential source of political capital. With the other actors, especially with other municipalities of the metropolitan area, the main arena used to the negotiating process were the spaces provided by the of environmental licensing process, constituting the environmental compensation measures the main trade currency. With the private sector, involved mainly in the phase of implementation, formal and informal moments of negotiation are detected, being the contracts negotiations of the major works of the project and the possibilities of campaign donations by the companies to the parties and candidates as the prime issue. The conclusion therefore is that the Rodoanel Mário Covas, despite of incur significantly in the restructuring of the metropolitan region was not implemented taking into account a process of metropolitan planning. The concretization of the project was a significant confluence of institutional, political, social and urbanistic factors, all connected from the articulations promoted by the actions of the State\'s Government with the public and private actors, conducted in different arenas and negotiation processes. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 10/14276-0 - The (mis) direction of urban policies in Brazil: analysis of the factors and mechanisms determining the trajectories of mobility projects for the cities of São Paulo (SP) and Fortaleza (CE)
• Grantee: Rodrigo Faria Gonçalves Iacovini
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master