Traffic jams in largest metropolis in southern hemisphere

Feb 2018 took us to a new continent in the Edale expanding client work. Sao Paulo was enriching in new experiences and firsts. We flew indirectly from London to Sao Paulo via Charles De Gaule in Paris that involved a transfer from terminal 2 to terminal 1 that was more difficult and time-consuming than it should have been with a massive walk, bus wait, and another trip up and down the spider design of CDG. That part of the trip was going to be outdone by the Friday traffic jam in SP. Here’s our traffic adventure in SP.

I now know in a city of 20 million people, traffic jams have become part of the culture. Rich commuters prefer to helicopter to work, where landing pads are at the top of a lot of the buildings in the city centre. No such riches for Edale.

We were fortunate our inbound flight meant we were on the road at 5am and an hour later we were in Brooklin to start a few days of meetings. Friday back to the airport was travel failure and not forward planning. Having had warning of bad traffic at a start to the weekend meant we left at 3PM but still spent 4 hours getting to the airport and experiencing tail to bumper on the fast land of the BR116 with people selling cold drinks! It reminded me of days in 1999 in Johannesburg where traffic was bad and people were window selling at every stop. João Doria was a major who campaigned on the slogan Acelera São Paulo (“speed up São Paulo”) though we were in the rut of the start of the weekend and on the main road out of town. Anyway, a snail pace adventure that matched inefficiency of a terminal transfer at CDG.

Sao Paulo is a colourful city and one we’ll be back as we grow.

Scroll to Top