Although it was isolated in the suburban countryside in the year of its inauguration, the now-named 'Petite Ceinture' that year was an integral part of the city. Although the Paris-Auteuil and Ceinture Rive Droite section plans had accounted for this eventuality, the Ceinture Rive Droite had many countryside-style road-crossings, a hindrance that became more important as Paris' population grew. The Syndicate's shifting its freight transport to the Grande Ceinture made remedying this problem possible, and from 1886, with service reduced to one rail in many places, City engineers and Ceinture Syndicate workers built bridges, dug trenches, re-landscaped, and rebuilt stations, all in time for the 1889 universal exposition.