Off the wire
News Analysis: U.S. President Obama's trade deal unlikely to pass Congress before he leaves office  • UC Berkeley's new undergraduate program to prep students for innovation  • Nadal ready for Olympics despite fitness doubt  • Urgent: DPRK fires 1 ballistic missile into east waters  • Rio organizers apologize for robbery towards athlete and tourist, advice to be alert  • Aussie dollar rallies on greenback weakness  • Dakar Rally champion aims at podium finish in Rio Games shooting event  • South Korean cyclist in accident while training for Rio Olympics  • S.Korea's foreign reserves rise to 371.4 bln USD in July  • German veteran Hausding to be the only diver competing in three events at Rio Olympics  
You are here:   Home

Rio declares holiday to prevent traffic chaos during Olympic torch relay

Xinhua, August 3, 2016 Adjust font size:

In order to prevent traffic chaos during the Olympic torch relay, Rio's Mayor Eduardo Paes announced on Tuesday that the coming Thursday will be a holiday.

The Olympic torch is already in Rio state and the relay is expected to get to the city on Thursday. Given the traffic chaos which is taking place in Rio this week, the mayor thought it better to declare a holiday to alleviate the situation by reducing the number of commuters.

Traffic in Rio has already been deeply changed by the Olympics: the city's main expressways got special lanes exclusive to vehicles related to the Olympics, such as buses transporting athletes, and several accesses were closed to the general public.

Those changes caused more chaos in Rio's already chaotic traffic: over 100 kilometers of traffic jams were registered on Monday and Tuesday.

With the perspective of even more problems on Thursday, Paes decided that another holiday would be a better choice. Other three holidays had already been announced: Aug. 5th, the day of the opening ceremony; the 18th, the day of the marathon; and the 22th, the day after the closing ceremony. Enditem