See principal player/city planner extraordinaire:
Mayor Jaime Lerner at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haKh9mCk3xk
What makes Curitiba unusual is not that it had a coherent plan, but that it was implemented. A city must know where it is growing, how and why. Existing trends must be evaluated technically, politically, economically, and socially. Curitiba has shown that successful solutions do not need to be expensive. A sustainable city spends the minimum and spares the maximum. Curitiba teaches us that solutions are not isolated and specific, but inter-connected as we are with the earth, and all the inhabitants of earth. The entire debate for or against privatization is not important when we realize there is a role for every citizen. Creativity and labor can substitute for financial resources. And a good information system is necessary. The better inhabitants know their city, the better they treat it, especially a city’s planners. Planning is essential, but we don’t have much time to plan and we cannot attempt to have all the answers, but it’s important to start using creativity and innovation now. Having people contribute will keep you on the right track. Taking care of a city is a process that you start, and then give the population space to respond. There is no place in a city that can’t be better.
- Public Transportation System: Innovative rapid bus transport system (uses boarding tubes). Each of 5 axes has a trinary road system consisting of a central road for express buses flanked by high-capacity one-way roads on each side: one in and one out of the city. The boarding tubes have a platform the same height as the bus which eliminates the need for crew to collect fare, enables 2 or 3 times more passengers per hour. 2/3 of the populations use this bus system. Traffic lights give priority to buses. Entire bus system uses no direct financial subsidy. Land-use legislation encourages high-density service and commerce occupation. Land along the axes allows floor area six times the plot size which decreases the further the site is from public transportation.
- Planning Process: The government acquired land along the axes prior to construction in order to organize high density housing to lower-income families (17,000) close by. Road network has structural framework – 4 types of roads: structural, priority, connector, and collector. Capital costs: use of express buses on exclusive bus ways using boarding tubes (.2 million) is far less expensive than subways ($90-100 million per kilometer cost) or light rail systems ($20 million/kilometer cost). Buses are color-coded, there are express buses, inter-district buses and feeder buses-a single fare is good for all buses with ease in transferring. Limited pollution due to bus use. Computerized area traffic control system. Social bus fare: standard fare which meant benefit for the city’s periphery (poor) as shorter trips subsidized longer trips. Expansion of park/green areas and reduced resource use.
- Water, Sanitation & Garbage: Environmental education: “garbage that is not garbage” solid waste management program encourages citizens to separate organic from inorganic. 90% of the population has piped water, 60% has sewage lines. They are developing an innovative lagoon system where water is first treated with micro-organisms in anaerobic lagoons which flow into aerobic lagoons, which flow into the rivers. Other methods used include an open air canal running parallel to a river to prevent flooding and allow breakdown of pollutants before entering a river. A pedestrian walkway and cycle-way is being developed on one of the banks of this canal.
- Preservation of city’s cultural heritage: owners of building designated as having historical value can change the building’s use, but not the fundamental facade and layout. A foundry is now a popular shopping mall, gunpowder arsenal turned into a theater, a glue factory into a creativity center, army headquarters into a cultural foundation, the city’s oldest house is now a documentation/public center, the old railway station is the railway museum, and a stone quarry is an open air theater. They have a 24-hour street where business stay open 24/7 and sustains commercial activities in the city center. The “Guarda Verde” (the green guard, a municipal corporation protects and maintains the green areas. The guards keep the public informed about environmental issues and are trained in first aid. Millions of trees have been planted. Programs encourage community responsibility for the parks such as “Friends of the Park” and “Boy Scout Bicycle Watch”. Local schools promote ecological principles. The parks provide aesthetic and recreational value, also flood control. Each park has information centers on the local environment and ecology, along with bike paths. Botanical gardens are being developed over garbage dumps which include some of the last remaining flora and fauna native to that region. The city provides free bus service on weekends to the parks which are painted green.
- Social services and environmental education: Health care, child day care, adult education, rehabilitation programs. Remodeled old city buses are mobile classrooms for adults in low-income areas, providing short-term courses in hair-styling, mechanics, sewing, carpentry, and word-processing. They go to different areas each day of the week. Income earned from recycled garbage is used on social programs. Jobs in the garbage-separating plant are provided for the homeless and recovering alcoholics. Garbage exchange program – to deal with potential health problems, squatter settlements can sell their bagged garbage for bus tickets and agricultural/dairy products. This has decreased urban litter and increased quality of life for the poor. Cost to the city for bus fares and garbage bags are no different than what they pay for garbage collection. This has prevented garbage from being dumped in forests, rivers, and valleys, and decreased infant mortality rates and saving families’ expenditures on medicines. Since lack of education is one reason for environmental destruction, environmental education is especially strong in elementary schools. Curitiba’s city planners believed one of the most effective ways to teach people about recycling is through the children who teach their parents.
What was the planning/administrative framework necessary to make it happen?
1. Priority on meeting the population’s transportation needs rather than meeting the needs of car owners.
2. Plan, Direct & Control the Growth Process, avoiding large-scale/expensive projects.
3. Encourage physical expansion along linear axes which at the center had a road with exclusive bus lanes.
4. Reduce concentration of employment in city center to return this area to the pedestrian and cultural heritage. Commercial/service sectors were expanded along structural axes north, south, east and west.
5. A special designated industrial area west of the city which generates one fifth of all jobs in the city without significant industrial pollution.
The “Sustainable Song” (watch Jaime Lerner sing it at the end of his video)
It’s possible! It’s possible!
You can do it! You can do it!
Use your car less!
Make this transition!
Avoid carbon emission!
It’s possible! It’s possible!
You can do it! You can do it!
Live closer to work!
Work closer to home!
Save energy in your own home!
It’s possible! It’s possible!
You can do it! You can do it!
Separate your garbage!
Organic, schmorganic!
Do More with Less!
It’s possible! You can do it!
Please do it now!
Wonderful website! I will come back!!