Niterói Mayor talks about plans for 2026

— I feel like I’ve been in government for four years — he said, referring to the pace of work.

Check out the main points from the conversation below.

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For Rodrigo, the municipality’s investment in the area of ​​security has generated results that contrast with the reality of other cities in the Metropolitan Region. Thanks to an agreement signed in January, the city hall is investing around 1 million reais per month in the military police, according to the mayor, thus doubling the number of personnel on the streets. Additionally, it allocates BRL 7 million per year to the civil police. For this reason, he says, the number of deaths due to police action or homicides was 45 this year, much lower than that of neighboring municipalities.

— In the city of Rio, three times as many people died during a single police operation as in Niterói during the entire year. So it’s really a very significant indicator – he says.

Since 2013, when he first took office, the Municipal Guard has grown from 150 to 800 agents, a nearly five-fold increase, Rodrigo adds. This year, 80 additional guardsmen graduated and took to the streets.

The mayor says the fight against crime has benefited from the combination of technology – including cameras equipped with artificial intelligence and the Shotspotter system, which detects gunshots – and social projects.

— Niterói has a real technological wall that inhibits criminal actions — he says.

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Homeless population

Asked about one of Niteroi’s main complaints, the presence of homeless people and drug addicts in different areas of the city, the mayor says he is betting on the Recomeço program, launched this year, as a response to the problem, but recognizes the complexity of the problem:

— Recomeço is a concept of public order and mental health assistance, aimed at people with addictions, drug and alcohol users, as well as those who have lost family ties and started living on the streets. It integrates education for young people and adults, technical vocational education, integration into the labor market and health care.

Figures presented by the town hall indicate a 40% reduction in the number of homeless people since the implementation of the program. But the manager admits that the work is far from finished.

— The idea is to continue moving forward in humanized, but also necessary, public order actions in the city, to avoid the consolidation of cracolândias and occupations of public space — he reflects.

Still in the area of ​​social assistance, the town hall reports that nine thousand atypical families – with elderly people, disabled children and people in vulnerable situations – were included this year in the Moeda Arariboia program. According to the government, the expansion of the allowance benefits groups who require more care and who are often unable to guarantee adequate nutrition. Last week, the municipality paid the Moeda Arariboia de Natal, a sort of 13th salary for the program.

Management also highlights the inauguration of the Center for Assessment, Reception and Social Inclusion of Autistic People (Cais). The place is described as a gateway to an integrated network of education, health and social assistance services for atypical families, against a backdrop of increasing diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders in several cities.

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The Vida Nova no Morro program is also expected to start in 2026, which will involve an investment of approximately 600 million reais, approved by the Inter-American Development Bank. The first communities covered will be Morro do Estado and Vila Ipiranga, where housing improvements and the implementation of the Family Architect program are planned. The town hall indicates that the intention is to start in these two localities and, gradually, to extend the actions to the other favelas of the municipality.

In the field of culture, November marked the inauguration of the Cauby Peixoto Cultural Center, in a historic residence in the North Zone, expropriated in 2019. The town hall emphasizes that the building was abandoned for approximately 35 years and that the opening of the facilities represents the recovery of a symbolic space for the region.

In the field of education, the mayor emphasizes that the city is the only one in the Metropolitan Region to have universal care for children aged 0 to 6, a long-standing request from the population, and to have air conditioning in all classrooms.

In the area of ​​health, Rodrigo highlights the renovation of the Alzira Reis maternity ward, in Charitas, which since May has carried out more than 900 deliveries. It also indicates that the town hall has hired 267 doctors, an objective set over four years, but achieved in ten months, and that all the teams of the Family Doctor program are complete.

The Fila Zero na Saúde program has already carried out more than 20,000 exams, significantly reducing the wait.

However, the mayor harshly criticizes the lack of co-financing from the state government:

— The State does not finance health sufficiently. Despite collecting more than 800 million reais in ICMS from the city, double the IPTU, co-financing does not take place. While the city hall invests more than a billion reais in health, the state alone invests 15 million reais per year. This is not enough to maintain even one Getulinho (hospital) for two months.

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For the future, the town hall’s strategy for the years to come places the Center as one of the main axes. With approximately 20,000 residents currently, the region’s population is expected to double over the next ten years in an orderly and planned manner. The revitalization of Praça Arariboia is a symbol of the Reviver Centro program, and the order of starting work on the new Amaral Peixoto and Rua da Conceição, which will have accessible sidewalks, new lighting, new landscaping and underground wiring, he says, are part of the reformulation, which also provides for other public facilities along the way to Cantareira station, where, soon, there will be a pole technology, in partnership with IBM and Nvidia in Brazil.

In April, the Arena Niterói, considered the first indoor sports arena on this side of Guanabara Bay, will be delivered.

Also for 2026, it is planned to begin construction of a convention center next to Caminho Niemeyer.

In November, macro-drainage works were completed in Barreto and Engenhoca, in the northern zone, neighborhoods that have suffered from flooding for five decades.

— Politicians generally don’t like doing these projects because they cause huge disruption and once they’re done, no one remembers they were done. Just look at the ocean region, where residents have suffered from flooding for months. We built large galleries, large drainages, and today the infrastructure is practically complete, says Rodrigo. — The North Zone suffered from flooding for 50 years and now, in addition to overcoming this problem, it is the region that will receive the VLT.

The mayor also announces the launch of the notice for the works of the Caio Martins swimming pool and the interventions that promise to resolve the flooding in Santa Rosa and Largo do Marrão:

—This is an investment estimated at more than 300 million reais. And a work also awaited for decades.

In total, three major macro-drainage gallery projects against flooding in the city (Barreto/Engenhoca, Charitas and Icaraí) total investments of more than 100 million reais just in the works already underway, not counting the 300 million reais announced.

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In the area of ​​mobility, the fare reduction has yielded positive results, according to the mayor’s assessment. For him, with the cycle paths, the measure has caused a reduction in the number of cars on saturated routes, such as Avenida Roberto Silveira, in Icaraí, also allowing, above all, access for residents of the Oceanic Region to the catamaran and residents of the Northern Zone to the ferries, in the Center.

For 2026, other works classified as structural are planned: the Caramujo Integration Terminal and the interventions on Alameda São Boaventura, in addition to the start of the construction of the VLT. But the mayor still hopes that metro line 3 will move forward.

— It is clear that Niterói is a transit city and has a chronic problem, namely the fact that it only has one access road to the main economic center of the state, the city of Rio, which is the Rio-Niterói bridge. It is unacceptable that the federal and state governments have yet to get Metro Line 3 off the ground. We have three million people on this side, who often need to move to the other side. When this bridge has an accident, it paralyzes the entire East of Fluminense — he observes.

This year, Niterói won first place in sanitation in the state of Rio and third in Brazil in a ranking prepared by the Instituto Trata Brasil. The objective declared by the mayor is ambitious. The City Hall and Águas de Niterói announced an investment of 315 million reais in 33 work fronts, which began in November, to universalize the wastewater collection networks.

— During my previous mandate, we reached 100% treated water and 100% regions with treatment plants, with the opening of the Pendotiba stations, in Maria Paula, and Sapê, Caramujo and Santa Bárbara. But from now on, we will go from 96% of collection networks to 100%, by December 2028 – he promises.