It was a photo finish for Line 4—one of the signature infrastructure projects of the 2016 Summer Olympics—designed to transport passengers between Ipanema beach and the Olympic Park and Village.
"To the relief of organizers, the government and the tens of thousands either working on the Games or planning to watch them, Rio finally began operating its new Olympic metro line at 6:07 a.m. on Monday," reports Dom Phillips.
The Summer Olympics open on Friday, so the Metro line opening could be described as just in time. " The new line, originally promised for 2014, had caused increasing nervousness as its opening was repeatedly postponed," writes Phillips. Just last month, the Rio state government was described as "scrambling" to finish the project—expected to be the most significant infrastructure legacy project of the games.
The article details more of the political debate surrounding this summer's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, with the new metro line as a specific case study. Similar to points made by a feature article recently published in The Nation, Phillips notes that opposition to the new metro line as a benefit primarily to already-affluent communities.
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