The Santos–Guarujá immersed tunnel, the first of its kind in Brazil, will be a milestone in smart mobility. The project includes three traffic lanes in each direction, one of them reserved for Light Rail Transit (LRT), as well as a bike path, a pedestrian walkway, and a service gallery. This multimodal design places the Baixada Santista region on the path to the mobility of the future, offering faster, more sustainable, and more inclusive transport solutions.
In August of this year, the project received its preliminary environmental license from Cetesb, a crucial step for enabling the auction in September. The document acknowledges the project’s positive impacts on urban integration and sustainable transport in the region.
Currently, the connection between Santos and Guarujá is made by ferries, which take around 18 minutes per crossing but are subject to long queues and operational variability. By road, the journey can take up to one hour. With the tunnel, the trip will be completed in as little as five minutes, directly benefiting more than 720,000 residents of the two cities and the workers who commute daily between them.
With an estimated investment of R$ 6.8 billion, the project will receive up to R$ 5.1 billion in public funding, shared equally between the Government of São Paulo and the Federal Government. The 30-year concession contract will cover construction, operation, and maintenance. The tunnel will be 1.5 km long, with 870 meters immersed, built with pre-cast concrete segments installed on the seabed of the port channel — a technique already consolidated in European and Asian countries.
In addition to reducing travel times, the tunnel will boost tourism, strengthen the local economy, and help cut emissions by encouraging the use of collective and sustainable transport modes.
The auction will take place on September 5, 2025, at 4:00 p.m., at the São Paulo Stock Exchange (B3), with proposals due by September 1, at 10:00 a.m.