The sad story of the third ring from Santa Cruz

The Techint Plan did not define four rings for Santa Cruz as is mistakenly believed. That four-ring design was later developed, in the late 1960s, by the local team with foreign advice.

Originally, the third ring was one more ring, 30 meters wide, but the idea arose that, since it was an intermediate ring among the four, it could be “fattened” in its central part so that its central ridge was so wide. enough to shelter there the tertiary equipment that the city and that the newly created neighborhood units were going to need. Thus, on that “belly” which is actually a central ridge widened to 140 meters, the tertiary equipment we see today was located: hotels, hospitals, universities, shopping centers, markets and sports clubs.

It is obvious that since there is only one third ring road, that is, one avenue and not two, the side lanes had to be one going and the other coming. There would be three going lanes and three coming lanes, as well as gardens, tree planting and side parking lots with a width of 10 meters on each side.

This design had the enormous advantage of facilitating left turns at intersections, since no one was coming from the opposite side, thus greatly increasing the capacity of the road. We would have a total of 6 lanes, and not four as it is today, also with ample spaces for tree planting and parking.

Due to ignorance, this profile was initially destroyed for several blocks in the area of ​​the zoo, and then the destruction of the initial idea was repeated with the profile used in the western sector of the third ring road, which left no space for trees or sidewalks. That third inner ring is a wasteland not to be repeated.

At the time, the environmental platforms stopped this disastrous design in the northwest sector because it implied, among other things, having to cut down many trees. It was thought that the municipal government had learned the lesson and understood the problem, but it seems not.

Thus, the current management has already announced that it will insist on the definitive destruction of the third ring in its original version, which is the solution that offers the most fluidity and beauty to the city. It is a pity that those who make these decisions do not previously investigate what they are going to execute.