TED ("Technology, Environment, Design") is a yearly exchange of ideas from influential thinkers and doers in many fields, and many participants' talks are available online, on TED's excellent website. One of the more germane to Brand Avenue is a presentation by Jaime Lerner, architect, planner, and well-known former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, touted as "the most innovative city in the world."
One of the more interesting points that Lerner makes in his presentation are that of the "metronization" of the Curitiba bus system; that is, the establishment of stations that are more akin to subway stations in their design and form, but serve the city's vaunted bus rapid transit (BRT) system instead. For their part, the buses also act more like trains, serving a greater capacity with increased length and larger door openings.
From an exhaustive NYTimes article last year about the city, an explanation from Lerner of how this unusual system came to be:
“We tried to understand, what is a subway?” he recalls. “It has to have speed, comfort, reliability and good frequency. But why does it have to be underground? Underground is very expensive. With dedicated lanes and not stopping on every corner, we could do it with buses."...
In 1992, Lerner and his team established the tubular boarding platforms with fare clerks and turnstiles, so that the mechanisms for paying and boarding are separated, as in a subway. To carry more people at a time, the city introduced flexible-hinged articulated buses that open their doors wide for rapid entry and egress; then, when the buses couldn’t cope with the demand, the Lerner team called for bi-articulated buses of 88 feet with two hinges (and a 270-passenger capacity), which Volvo manufactured at Curitiba’s request. Comparing the capacities of bus and subway systems, Lerner reels off numbers with a promoter’s panache. “A normal bus in a normal street conducts x passengers a day,” he told me. “With a dedicated lane, it can transport 2x a day. If you have an articulated bus in a dedicated lane, 2.7x passengers. If you add a boarding tube, you can achieve 3.4x passengers, and if you add double articulated buses, you can have four times as many passengers as a normal bus in a normal street.” He says that with an arrival frequency of 30 seconds, you can transport 36,000 passengers every hour — which is about the same load he would have achieved with a subway.
The other role of the bus stations is that of design icon, which Lerner uses to demonstrate the need for urban "reference points," architectural pieces that help engender an identity for the modern city, and in turn create a sense of ownership for the city's residents.
Another issue is, a city is like our family portrait. We don't rip our family portrait even if we don't like the news of our uncle, because this portrait is you.
In other words, a place is made of people; and the sense of place and a community's sense of itself act reciprocally on each other.
Above, street furniture becomes civic symbol (via), part of what makes Curitiba unmistakably Curitiba. If it wasn't unusual in its appearance--if it didn't stand out from its surroundings, and wasn't clearly "readable" as a form--we probably wouldn't notice it. A simple, strong idea that offers significant justification for unconventional urban design approaches.
nice. i've spent many an hour fantacizing about having a curitiba-like systems implemented in american cities.
plus, doesn't jaime lerner seem like one of the nicest, jolliest, warm-hearted people on earth?
Posted by: aaron | 05/09/2008 at 12:18
aaron--absolutely!
Posted by: Chris | 07/14/2008 at 18:42
Hi, my name is Thais, I'm Brazilian and live in this beautiful cidadede they are talking. Curitiba is the capital of Paraná, one of the southernmost states of Brazil. It is known internationally for its progressive transportation system, social services and environmental practices. Curitiba, a city model for Brazilian cities, of course, but despite many economic problems is a good place to live
I love to live in curitiba
I love being brazilian
Sugira uma tradução
Posted by: Thaís Alesandra Tavares | 02/01/2010 at 08:13