Curitiba approves transport program funds

The city council of Brazil's Parana state capital Curitiba has approved an 83.8mn reais (currently US$29.7mn) supplementary budget request submitted by the municipality for its US$133mn urban transport program, the municipality reported. The funds will go towards the first stage of the program's Eixo Metropolitano de Transportes component, which entails refurbishing a 25km stretch of federal highway BR-476 (formerly 116) that runs through the city. The other component aims to revamp the city's transport system and road network. Most of the credit - 75.4mn reais - would come from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the rest from the municipality. The IDB - which authorized Curitiba to launch the program's first tenders last month - and the city's government are expected to ink a financing contract by year-end for some US$80mn. An official from the city's research and planning institute IPPUC - the program's executing agency - told BNamericas that with the council's approval, the door is now open to launch the first tenders. The first tender, which should be launched by month-end, will entail drawing up the 25km stretch's engineering designs, followed by a tender for a supervisory contract and a tender to manage the entire program, said the official, adding that tenders to carry out the physical works are dependent on the financing contract being inked. Curitiba's metropolitan area is made up of 25 municipalities and has 1.59 million residents, 60% of which live in Curitiba itself.