DEVELOPMENT: World’s Longest Bridge to Join Argentina-Uruguay

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

PUNTA LARA, Mar 4 1997 (IPS) - The Government, pushing ahead with plans to build the world’s longest bridge, is calling for early tenders to construct the link which will join Punta Lara with the Uruguayan city of Colonia. The two cities currently are separated by the 26-miles-wide Rio de la Plata.

Reaction to the long-heralded bridge has been mixed. Environmentalists in Uruguay expressed worries about the environmental impact on Colonia, built by the Portuguese in the 16th century. The city’s current population of 20,000 could zoom to 100,000 within 20 years, they said.

There has been less excitement on the Argentine side of the river. Punta Lara experienced a slight rise in property values and some heightened expectation that a number of new jobs will come to this traditionally marginalized area of the river.

The inhabitants here have had experience of seeing promises associated with public works projects go up in smoke or have witnessed the creation of far fewer local jobs than expected. The prevailing watchword is “seeing is believing.” For now there isn’t much to see, certainly not along the stretch of shoreline where the bridge is scheduled to touch land.

Punta Lara is a riverbank town with 7,000 inhabitants who, notably, have no local government. In theory the population is subordinate to the larger political bailiwick of Ensenanda but, in practice, Punta Lara drifts along with no effective government; its streets have no names or numbers and, on weekends, traffic is totally chaotic.

Visitors locate homes and commercial buildings by looking at the numbers stamped on street-light poles.

Seven bathing beaches along this stretch of Argentine coast are heavily utilized, despite pollution problems. They have been fenced off for the use of pay-as-you-go campers, a relatively unique form of privatization.

A giant billboard on the outskirts of town alerts visitors to the coming international bridge, otherwise no visitor to Punta Lara would believe the town could be totally transmformed in just over one year from now when all the machinery, office buildings and people involved start to get the project moving.

Currently unemployment in Ensenada exceeds 25 per cent, and is even higher in Punta Lara. Many residents make their living by fishing, housecleaning and maintaining weekend rental properties for residents of Buenos Aires, a city some 25 miles away.

Punta Lara used to be an attractive resort town until several decades ago when the river banks began to suffer from cumulative pollution, and when good roads were built to the Atlantic coast – 250 miles away – thus motivating a shift from riverside to oceanside resorts.

One resident declared that “government moves very slowly in these parts, and when bridge construction actually begins there will be an uncontrolled explosion of private interests scrambling to take possession of the best land.”

Once built, the Bridge across the Rio de la Plata will overtake overtake the Pontchartrain bridge in Louisiana in the United States as the world longest. Among companies known to be bidding for a slice of the one billion dollar project were Mitsubishi from Japan, the French company Dumez, Italy’s Impreglio, Germany’s Bilfinger, Spain’s Dagados, Korea’s Daewo, Brazil’s Oder Brech, Trafalgar House of Britain and a variety of Argentine companies such as Techint.

The French consulting firm of Louis Berger is coordinating the 17 companies contracted to perform many technical, economic and environmental preliminaries and will complete its work this year. Only then will those companies bidding for actual construction rights have an outline of the particular bridge to-be-built.

All companies with an interest in the bidding process will have to present their credentials by April of this year in order to be pre-classified as potential contractors.

The bridge will rise to a maximum height of 200 feet over the water to allow the passage of cargo ships. There has been much speculation on motor traffic across the bridge and the tolls to be charged. The average estimate is for five thousand vehicles a day to use the bridge. Tolls could be as high as 75 to 100 dollars – compared to the current airfare of 114 dollars while a boat trip from Buenos Aires to Colonia costs 42 dollars – a fee that includes a city tour of Colonia.

The Argentine and Uruguayan governments require that any company which wishes to bid for ther projuct prove they have assets worth 400 million dollars and that they have billed a total of 2 billion dollars in the last four years.

Neither Argentina nor Uruguay will actually pay for the bridge. Instead they will allow concessionaires to enjoy tax-free status during construction, a process scheduled to last five years. They will also remain tax-free during the contracted period for managing the bridge, and will enjoy exclusive rights to nearby gas stations and duty free shops.

Not only will the Punta Lara-Colonia bridge unite two countries, it will also serve to stimulate integration among the nations of Mercosur, the South American common market comprised of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay.

By using the bridge, private automobiles and commercial trucks will save 4 to 5 hours of land travel – plus associated gas and vehicular costs. However, they will also pay a high cost for use and maintenance of the bridge.