A train to the airport

Works of Line 13 (Jade) from CPTM, which will connect the city with the International Airport in Guarulhos, enters in its final phase after a lot of problems

The Government of São Paulo is passing by difficulties to comply with its promises and conclude the high volume of mobility works that were started in the last five years. The Line 13 (Jade) from CPTM – Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos is among these works. The line starts in the station Engenheiro Goulart, from Line 12 - Safira (Brás – Calmon Viana) and goes to the region of the São Paulo International Airport, in Guarulhos. The initial deadline of conclusion was 2014—for the World Cup—but the line had several delays, was retaken in March of the last year and the new deadline was established for the end of 2018.

The Line 13 represents a quality improvement in the state’s structure of mobility, putting the users of 22 cities attended by the branches of CPTM—in addition to the subway system—closer to the International Airport Governador André Franco Montoro, located at Cumbica/Guarulhos.  Currently, users can arrive to the airport only by road vehicles.

In addition, new stations bring a daring architecture that uses light and glassy structures with a lot of natural lighting and wide mezzanines. They will probably become new urban milestones of the region. The new stations were calculated to attend comfortably the new demand of passengers, estimated in 130,000 users per day.

The structure of the new buildings has covered platforms and the stations will have all items of accessibility such as elevators, communication in Braille, handrails, ramps and tactile floors and routes. They will also have common restrooms and unities dedicated to handicapped persons and bins for common and recyclable garbage.

The place will have a rain collection system that will be used—after treatment—in irrigation and restroom cleaning.

The modern visual communication will make easier the users’ motion inside the building. The project has most of its path in elevated structure. It is an important challenge of Civil Engineering, mainly in the transposition of rivers and roads.

Overcoming challenges

Having a total length of 12.2 km, the Line 13 – Jade will attend the growing demand of the connection between Guarulhos and São Paulo. The line will have three stations: Aeroporto-Guarulhos, Guarulhos-Cecap (new) and Engenheiro Goulart (being rebuilt), where the integration with the Line 12-Safira (Brás-Calmon Viana) will be carried out. The operation will include eight trains.

The main challenge of the works are the several interferences to be overcome, highlights the engineer Jackson Eugenio, from CPTM. “River and road transpositions are a large section of the elevated path. There will be five transpositions, all carried out using the method of successive cantilever. The longest transposition will be over the Presidente Dutra Highway, 120 meters long”, says him.

Works are divided in four sections. Sections 1 and 3 will be built by the consortium HFTS Jade, composed by the contractors Heleno & Fonseca Construtécnica, Trail Infraestrutura and Spavias Engenharia. Sections 2 and 4 will be carried out by the consortium CST Linha 13-Jade, composed by the contractors Consbem Construções e Comércio, Serveng-Civilsan Empresas Associadas de Engenharia and TIISA (Triunfo IESA Infraestrutura).