The city of Curitiba is home to almost 2 million people and is the cultural, political, and financial center in southern Brazil. It has faced many of the same dilemmas that plague transportation planners and policymakers in U.S. cities. In the 1960s, traffic congestion was ruining the livability of the city and harming the economy, but the city did not have enough money to build the kind of expensive, fixed-rail transit line that had become the norm in other large cities around the world. An innovative, low-cost solution was needed, or else Curitiba would stop growing and lose its status as the economic hub of the region. Local planners, led by future mayor Jamie Lerner, tapped available resources to provide the best possible product for their residents. Rather than spend $16-24 million/mile for a light rail system or $100–200 million/mile for an underground subway, the city invested $6 million/mile to construct an extensive rapid- bus system. Planners took the comfort, speed, and frequency of an expensive subway and applied them to an above-ground, subway-like system using buses. They built tube bus stations and installed turnstiles for rapid boarding and fare collection along designated bus lanes. A conventional bus, with an 80-passenger capacity on an average street, could transport 1,000 passengers per day. Boarding tubes and bus right-of-way lanes allow Curitiba's buses to carry 4,000 passengers per day.
Curitiba's bus system has been a huge success, as the city has been transformed into a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly, environmentally conscious, and sustainable place. With buses arriving every 36 seconds to move passengers in and out of the city, Curitiba's 1,902 buses attract 2.3 million riders daily. Because there are so many transit users, fuel consumption in the city is 30 percent lower than in Brazil's other major metropolitan areas.
Lessons to Learn
Curitiba's convenience, cleanliness, and attractiveness of a public transportation system encourage people to leave their cars at home and take a bus. In Curitiba, for example, 85 percent of the population uses the system, as development around the stations also helps increase ridership. Transit users can easily access and enjoy nearby services and amenities including housing, restaurants, and stores. The city coordinated with land use and zoning departments to ensure that higher density residential units were allowed closer to the tube bus stations.
Chicago and other U.S. cities are considering new bus systems that borrow the best ideas from Curitiba. Mayor Richard Daley recently said, "All the money we're spending to remodel the El and the tunnel system… that is an enormous amount of money. You'll have to put it in [again] in another 20 years or 30 years. Some way, you have to look at some form of a bus system."
Curitiba and Chicago have similar population size, transit budget constraints, and roles as a cultural and economic hub. Whether it's re-striping current traffic lanes to accommodate a bus-only lane for rapid transit access or better interconnectivity between transportation modes, Chicago can learn from Curitiba's transit success.
More Information & Resources:
- The Road to Curitiba—New York Times
Issues in Bus Rapid Transit: Curitiba—Public Transit - The Curitiba Experience: Evolution of the Bus System—USDOT Federal transit Administration
- Curitiba's Urban Experiment—PBS Frontline World
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