Learning from Failures - PUCPR

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Learning from Failures: Avoiding Asymmetrical Views of Public Transportation Initiatives in Curitiba Fábio Duarte, Rodrigo Firmino & Olga Prestes Available online: 07 Oct 2011

To cite this article: Fábio Duarte, Rodrigo Firmino & Olga Prestes (2011): Learning from Failures: Avoiding Asymmetrical Views of Public Transportation Initiatives in Curitiba, Journal of Urban Technology, 18:3, 81-100 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10630732.2011.615569

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Journal of Urban Technology, Vol. 18, No. 3, July 2011, 81– 100

Learning from Failures: Avoiding Asymmetrical Views of Public Transportation Initiatives in Curitiba

Downloaded by [Rodrigo Firmino] at 08:38 10 November 2011

Fa´bio Duarte, Rodrigo Firmino, and Olga Prestes

ABSTRACT Curitiba, in Brazil, is known for the pioneering deployment of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in the 1970s, and its system became a reference model worldwide. However, from its very beginning, Curitiba’s BRT competed with rail projects, from subway to light rail vehicles (VLT). These projects have been defended by many municipal technicians over the years as better solutions for urban transportation. From 1952, when the last tram ran in the city, up to 2009, when the municipality concluded a bid for a new subway project, eight projects were developed as attempts to resume rail transportation in town. In spite of the failure of all those projects, this article proposes that the major innovations in the BRT in Curitiba had their origins in those unimplemented rail projects, through technical and political advances that resulted from controversies, conflicts, and alliances among the main relevant social groups and artifacts involved during this period.

Introduction The last tram ran in Curitiba in 1952. Two decades later, a master plan grounded on the articulation of land use, hierarchical street systems, and public transportation based on buses, transformed the city. This has made Curitiba an international reference in urban planning (Rogers, 1998); and its public transportation system has confounded roots with what became known as the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). Some important BRT guides name Curitiba’s system as a “full BRT,” comprehending, at least: a) high-capacity buses; b) special boarding platforms on the same level of the bus floor; c) fare collection before boarding; and d) segregated bus lanes (ITDP, 2007; EMBARQ, 2010). Nevertheless, over the almost 40 years since the first BRT corridor was built in the city, several projects attempting to resume rail public transportation have been detailed by municipal technicians. During our research on this subject we have found eight full projects, with technological, operational, and financial details. In 2008, the municipality called for bids for a technical proposal of a subway line. As usual, there was a controversy between the advocates of a modal shift (the resuming of rail transportation in town), and those who believe that the BRT could be still improved to meet the increasing demand. Table 1 shows the demand increase in the public transportation system run by the municipality, from 1960 to 2010, in comparison to the population growth. Despite not having been implemented, we argue that these rail projects boosted and subsidized some of the major innovations of the BRT in Curitiba. 1063-0732 Print/1466-1853 Online. Copyright # 2011 by The Society of Urban Technology http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10630732.2011.615569 All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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Table 1: Demand increase in the public transportation system run by the municipality 1960 – 2010, in comparison to the population growth Year

Population

Daily Passengersa

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

361,300 608,400 1,024,975 1,285,571 1,587,315 1,746,896

143,100 532,760 757,899 1,194,688 1,542,041 2,039,769b


Note: aUntil 1989, only passengers paying fares were counted. b Estimated based on demand increase from 2000 to 2007. Source: Authors, based on data from IBGE and URBS.

Therefore, where some see a failure of the rail projects in Curitiba, we intend to show that many of the most innovative characteristics of the BRT are rooted in those rail projects. As the readers of this journal know, technological flops are relative, once innovation is based on several intertwined social, economic, cultural, and technical aspects. We start this article discussing the social construction of technologies, the importance of interpretative flexibility, and the relative notion of technological failures. Afterwards, we describe the rail projects developed in Curitiba from 1952 to 2009, highlighting the underlying importance that rail projects had to the history of urban planning and BRT in the city. A Theoretical Perspective for Understanding Success Through Failure One of the most important aspects of such a study about the story of a successful case of urban-technological implementation is probably the recognition of the relevance of failures and forgotten attempts in the middle of the track, during the historical and social construction of the facts and artifacts that make the case of public transportation initiatives in Curitiba from the 1960s. Thus, we believe that the concepts embraced by the Social Construction of Technologies (SCOT) theory are crucial to support the understanding of what happened to public transportation in Curitiba in the last four or five decades. According to Bijker and Law (1997), one of the pitfalls in science and technology studies that SCOTis designed to overcome is an asymmetrical account of facts and artifacts. They point out that, “Staudenmaier (1985) observed that in the first twenty-five volumes of the journal Technology and Culture, only nine articles were devoted to the analysis of failed technologies” (Bijker and Law, 1997:7). First, and above all, this theory is important because it demystifies the idea of aseptic technologies, of technical elements without more important and intrinsic roles in society. The idea is that of technologies or a set of technologies1 with a range of complex social, economic, political, and cultural roles; that is to say, a socially constructed development of a certain technology. Our technologies mirror our societies. They reproduce and embody the complex interplay of professional, technical, economic, and political factors (Bijker and Law, 1997:3). In other words, introducing new technologies to be absorbed by society implies considering all sorts of interactions and maneuvers by what Bijker (1987) calls “rel-

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evant social groups,” so that these technologies would occupy their space in time (in terms of practical use). In socio-technical terms, this process is regarded as the stabilization of a certain artifact, where society has come to a consensus about the meaning of this artifact and has, thus, incorporated it in a series of social activities. Yet, considering the relevant groups and their respective moves during the development of a certain set of technologies, Dutton and Guthrie (1991) defend the idea of an “ecology of games” between the different actors, involving distinct objectives and motivations. According to this idea, there is no one single movement towards the stabilization of an artifact but, rather, a range of parallel negotiations and/or disputes and conflicts motivated by different reasons, which together are responsible for the obduracy of a specific technological system: One approach to research on the political construction of technology is to view technology as “the result of a series of games participated in by the various organizational actors” (Crozier and Frieberg, 1980:57), or what Long (1958) referred to as the outcome of an “ecology of games” (Dutton and Guthrie, 1991:281). For instance, in terms of urban technology, the introduction of a new initiative or project—in terms of regulatory policy and effective implementation, or even a kind of transportation system—by local authorities would necessarily involve a number of disputes, political and social interactions, along with the technical development. These “games,” according to SCOT, happen all the time and are everywhere related to the artifact to be introduced. Thus, this new initiative would involve disputes inside and outside the local authority’s sphere: among politicians to launch the idea, for example; among officers and civil servants; among all of the groups, and among the general public and the third parties involved. When Bijker and Law (1997) talk about the stabilization of technologies, or of a certain set of technological arrangements, they do so by distinguishing between different strategies of obduracy. A key concept is strategy. According to them, the strength of a strategy is directly related to the dominant group’s ability to define and control who or what is inside or outside this strategy (basically, who corroborates and who obstructs, or even who is in favor and who is against): The pattern is that the protagonists—entrepreneurs, industrial or commercial organizations, government bureaucracies, customers or consumers, designers, inventors, or professional practitioners—seek to establish or maintain a particular technology or set of technological arrangements, and with this a set of social, scientific, economic, and organizational relations (Bijker and Law, 1997:9). Another concept borrowed from SCOT which can be very useful here is that of “interpretative flexibility” (Pinch and Bijker, 1989). This concept offers an explanation for why so many “languages” are spoken by actors within the events of a socio-technical process.

Interpretative Flexibility: Identifying “Voices,” Interests, Alliances, and Conflicts Interpretative flexibility deals with the variety of visions and interpretations given to a certain artifact within a given social context. In the case of rail projects in Cur-


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itiba, in every occasion, politicians, officers, civil servants, and the population have had their own idea of what the initiative being implemented might mean in terms of shape, characteristics, functions, use, consequences, etc. Even within each of these groups, there might be another range of interpretations. All rail projects in Curitiba have been put aside by the municipality due to internal technical disputes—we could even note that every time a rail project appeared, BRT advocates came up with an alternative technical solution. According to Pinch and Bijker (1989), each interpretation of an artifact depends on how a “problem” and respective “solutions” are realized by different actors. If the development of urban-technological strategies (such as the implementation of different transportation systems) was considered, being socially constructed, as an artifact, the ways in which social actors understood and acted upon this development would become extremely relevant to its acceptance and power of endurance. Possible questions about the interpretative flexibility of such a strategy would be: What does this strategy mean for the different social actors involved? What does it mean for officers and their departments, for politicians, citizens, and third parties, etc.? What are the problems and solutions to be dealt with by the different actors? How can the dominant social group cope with such a variety of visions for delivering a single strategy? In the end, is the strategy satisfactory to all sectors involved? Does it fulfill the variety of interpretations? Understandably, the number of interpretations also has to do with the aspirations and backgrounds of each social group and, consequently, what type of problems and solutions they are particularly linked to. Aurigi (2003:37) comments on the interpretations and problematization of a certain technology, that: It is beneficial to look not just at the system itself, but at what generates the need(s) for it, the problems it is supposed to solve, the solutions it is supposed to provide, and whom and what visions are promoting a certain setup, or a set of alternative ones. As a result of the differing visions and expectations of the different groups, a diverse range of “ideal artifacts” may be created (mentally and perhaps physically), even along a historical path of technological construction: Relevant social groups do not simply see different aspects of one artifact. The meanings given by a relevant social group actually constitute the artifact (Bijker, 1987:77). In the specific case of virtual cities or urban-technological strategies, this would mean a diverse range of virtual cities, or a number of alternative strategies; one for each social group or one for each conjunction of problems and solutions. Finding what these diverse artifacts and visions are, is what Bijker calls sociological deconstruction of an artifact or, “demonstrating the interpretative flexibility of an artifact” (Bijker, 1987:76). Different local and social contexts can develop completely different approaches to urban-technological systems which can, in turn, present different levels of interpretative flexibility. In this sense, these interpretations can be said to affect the final shape of the artifact itself (or, in these cases, the urban-technological system), which in turn affects further visions, and so on. We will thus argue that the relations between society and technology (including social groups and their variety of visions) are based on a two-way connection. Technology affects society as much as society affects technology:

Learning from Failures 85 As is obvious, technology is ubiquitous. It shapes our conduct at work and at home. It affects our health, the ways in which we consume, how we interact, and the methods by which we exercise control over one another. The study of technology, then, has immediate political and social relevance. And to be sure, because technology is treated as one of the major motors of economic growth, it has similar economic and policy relevance (Bijker and Law, 1997:11).


Double Track: BRT vs Rail Projects This SCOT theoretical framework helps us understand and interpret the successful and well known case of Curitiba’s public transportation system through the path of various “failed” attempts during its history of the last four decades. In other words, SCOT gives us the conceptual basis to reconstruct the history of an urban-technological system through its unknown or forgotten predecessors, helping us recount a story, carefully avoiding an asymmetrical account of the urban-technological system in question. The story and positive reputation of Curitiba’s public transportation system, as well as urban planning initiatives since the 1960s is a very well known episode of its recent history. As BRT in Curitiba became a huge success, most analyses were restricted to its transportation aspects based on buses. Ardila (2004), however, in a study covering the backstage of the BRT implementation in Curitiba, gives an overview of the preliminary considerations that municipal technicians made on rail systems to be adopted by the city. Ardila (2004:87) states that the chosen transport should be “flexible enough to adapt to the changing needs of a rapidly growing city.” Therefore, all that is known and recognized is represented, on one hand, by the intimate relationship between the transportation system and the development of the BRT, and on the other, by the various large urban development projects since the 1970s (of which, we can highlight: the close interdependence between transportation, road network design, and land use; the pedestrianization of one of the city’s most important streets; and the creation of a system of public parks). The microcosms of social, political, and technical developments from the moment these “famous” elements were proposed or planned until their final implementation, form a historical gap of facts and artifacts that SCOT might help us unveil. Many stories, facts, actors, and “failed” technological choices start to come to light as the interest in this particular moment of Curitiba’s history grows in the minds and works of social scientists and other researchers. In a recent study, for instance, Cardoso (2010) uses a similar theoretical framework (SCOT and Actor-Network Theory) to “translate” the processes between the original proposal of Curitiba’s Preliminary Urban Plan of 1966, to the effective implementation of a few selected projects during the city’s first administrative period after the plan, in 1975. Not incidentally, the mayor in this period was the architect Jaime Lerner, a key figure during the closing phases of the preliminary plan. Cardoso studied Lerner’s personal archives with hundreds of sketches and annotations in order to fill in the gaps during the few years that define this recent historical moment, also unveiling unsuccessful cases and secondary choices.

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Therefore, we believe that the mere revelation and comparison of two or more competing technological choices represent an important first step to help us make sense of the details in the history of Curitiba’s public transportation system. This represents a first look into an uncovered and unrecognized part of this history in order to understand the reasons that made the BRT system stronger every time a rail project was considered.


Take the Last Tram In June 1952, the last electric tram circulated on the streets of Curitiba. The removal of the tramway was already proposed in 1943 by Alfred Agache, the French urbanist who carried out urban plans in several Brazilian cities (Carollo, 1999). For Curitiba, Agache (1943) proposed a radio-centric road system crossed by longitudinal axes. The city had then 150 thousand inhabitants, and yearly growing rates around 7.2 percent. For a city of fast population growth and territorial expansion, Agache proposed that buses would be the best mean of transportation, as they are an adaptable technology—instead of rail systems. Therefore, in this context, trams were seen as an obstruction. The urban plan proposed by Agache has been only partially implemented. But the trams were removed. Notwithstanding, up to that time, the bus system had not been planned yet. Several bus companies plunged into an inceptive public transportation sector, exploiting an expanding city and competing freely among themselves (Garcez, 2006; Santoro, 2002).

Preliminary Study for the Metro in Curitiba – 1969 In the 20 years following Alfred Agache’s proposal, Curitiba grew inordinately. By the early 1960s the city had reached 360 thousand inhabitants. In 1964, a consortium formed by the Serete Limited (Society for Studies and Projects) and the urban planner Jorge Wilhelm, both based in Saõ Paulo, won a competition for developing the new Master Plan for Curitiba, called Plano Preliminar de Urbanismo. A local team was designated to detail the preliminary plan. The architect Jaime Lerner was part of this team, which was seminal for the creation of the Institute of Planning and Urban Research of Curitiba (IPPUC) in 1965. In this Master Plan, the development of the city was to follow two growth axes: North-South and East-West. These axes would receive mass transportation in segregated corridors, intermediate terminals for the integration of the feederto-trunk lines, and a land use allowing densification only along the corridors, in order to stimulate the use of public transportation and optimize the use of public infrastructure. The master plan established the axes North-South and East-West for mass transportation, but did not establish the mode to be deployed. A few years later, a third corridor, called Boqueiraõ, was built even before the implementation of the East-West corridor, in order to reach a far but populated district. Figure 1 shows the transportation corridors North-South, East-West, and Boqueiraõ, highlighting the city center and Santa Caˆndida and Pinheirinho terminals; and the highway BR 476 that was later renamed the Green Line. In 1969, the municipality began technical studies for choosing the best mode to be implemented in the mass transportation corridors. The first results indicated



Figure 1. Map of the Curitiba’s BRT axes Source: Authors

that Curitiba should adopt a light rail transport (LRT), with a maximum capacity of 90 passengers per car and a maximum speed of 90 km/h. The first line to be implemented would be 14km long, partially underground, partially on the street level (IPPUC, 1969)—it would be a “light subway,” as they called it. However, the efficiency of this system would depend on the deployment of feeder bus lines in integrated stations. Also, a fare integration system between the subway and the buses would be implemented with an electronic ticketing system. The transportation system’s capacity would be 36,000 passengers per hour, with an interval of 90 seconds between the cars (IPPUC, 1969). Despite the fact that the proposal had indicated the “light subway” as the best mode, the municipality decided that the feasibility of its implementation depended on the use of buses, due to funds shortage. With it the municipality intended to create the habit of using mass transportation among users, considering that: people should board and get off the buses only at bus stops (not anywhere, as before), the stops would be more widely spaced (900 meters between


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each other), the integration among the different lines would be possible only in terminals, and tickets would be sold off the buses. In 1970, Curitiba had reached 600 thousand inhabitants. Four years later, the express lines started to be implemented on 20 km of segregated corridors in the North-South axis. Boarding stops were specially designed, and a complete visual communication was elaborated showing how the feeder-to-trunk integration system worked. The operation began with 22 vehicles and an average speed of 25 km/h—the same predicted for LRT (UITP, 2001). Express line buses were 2.4 times more efficient than conventional buses in terms of time of journey and number of passengers carried in each journey, due to segregated rights-of-way corridors and priority at traffic lights, controlled by the Traffic Area System Control (CTA, in Portuguese), introduced in 1978 (PMC, 2004). It was the beginning of the Integrated Network of Transport of Curitiba (RIT, in Portuguese); and the seed of the future BRT (Bus Rapid Transit), which holds several aspects of a light rail system (UITP, 2001).

Preliminary Project for a Modern Tram: 1979 The global oil crisis of the 1970s pushed cities to seek solutions for public transportation. Besides the oil crisis, Curitiba had a particular issue, being its fast and uncontrolled population growth; in 1980 its population surpassed one million inhabitants. In the face of these problems, Curitiba proposed the electric tram in exclusive lanes as a solution. The plan was to substitute the buses for a light rail system in the North-South bus corridor. (See Figure 1.)With an extension of 18.6 km, it would serve six medium-size terminals, two major terminals and 24 regular stations distributed along the axis. Commercial centers would be located near the terminals since the flow of passengers would be greater with this new mode. Once again, the modal shift didn’t find a place. But the conception of the integration terminals as commercial centers and hubs for private and public services was adopted by the city. Called Citizenship Streets, the first was inaugurated in 1995. (See Figure 2.) In this project, the platforms would measure 3.6m wide and 77m long—much longer than the regular platform used for buses—in order to increase the number of passengers, once the cars also became longer. Technicians expected that the system would carry 15,000 passengers per hour at peak hours, and the capacity of each car would be 252 people. Fare collection would be made through modern electronic devices, and still, the trams’ fare would be integrated to the buses. Another strong argument for the implementation of electric trams was that they would reduce air and noise pollution (IPPUC, 1979).

Tram as a Solution, a Draft: 1981 Only two years after that, the preliminary project for a tram system was made public. It was updated and detailed in 1981 under the name of “Integrated Transport Network: The Tram as a Solution.” Besides the oil crisis, the operation of the system using regular buses on segregated corridors was nearly exhausted—the number of passengers was increas-



Figure 2. Tram in an exclusive corridor in the structural axes Source: IPPUC (Institute of Planning and Urban Research of Curitiba), 1979.

ing faster than the modernization of the system. Hence, a change to the tram mode, with larger cars, made sense. A year later, the municipality proposed the partial electrification of the existing Integrated Transport Network (RIT), covering the five mass public transport corridors and some important feeder lines, called Interbairros (Inter-districts or Inter-neighborhoods). In total, it was planned to reach a total of 167 km of bus routes—representing over 50 percent of the passenger demand. In 1991, the electrification was left behind, as well as the implementation of trams on the five segregated bus corridors—North, South, East, West, and Boqueiraõ. To meet the increasing demand, the regular buses that ran along the corridors used to form convoys of two or three buses running together. That brought a delay to the whole system. The municipality came up with an alternative solution: the creation of a new kind of bus line, called Direct Lines. (See Figures 3 and 4.)Their main function was to absorb part of the Express Lines’ demand. The direct lines would not run on the corridors, but share the streets with cars. This resolution was taken in order to redistribute the huge bus traffic along the axes. Nonetheless, the direct lines kept some of the innovations of the express lines—which had already been partially adapted from the rail projects. The distance between the direct line stops would be around 3 km (more than the express line stops, and even more than

Figure 3. Sketch of the Direct Line Source: Urbs – Urbanizaçaõ d Curitiba, 1992


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Figure 4. Direct Line implemented with special bus station Source: Urbs – Urbanizaçaõ d Curitiba, 1992

those of a light rail system); the stops would be the same glass tubes used by the express lines, with the boarding floor at the same level of the bus floor; and the fare was paid off the bus, before embarkment. Each vehicle had a capacity of 110 passengers. All those aspects stimulated the increase of the operating speed, equivalent to 20 km/h. And for the first time, the system offered access to disabled people, as all stops were adapted with hydraulic lifts and offered space inside the vehicle for a wheel chair.

Modern Streetcar, Draft: 1992 In 1992, 42 percent of the passengers of RIT used the North-South corridor, at least in part of their daily trips. Even with the innovations recently implemented, the quality of the service was compromised because of the growth demand—the city had reached 1.3 million inhabitants, and the share of passengers inhabiting the Metropolitan Region of Curitiba was growing even faster. The municipality decided to redeem and update the rail proposal of 1979, the Modern Tram. (See Figure 5.) Once again, the North-South axis was overloaded, and a mere amendment to the bus system was thought to be insufficient. At the time, the express lines carried 13,400 passengers per direction in peak hours. Considering that for a good bus service, the capacity should be between 10,000 to 15,000 users per hour per direction, the system was coming close to its limit (IPPUC, 1992). The Modern Tram would operate on the North-South structural axis. The itinerary would be 18.5 km long, and it would serve two main terminals, five integration terminals, the central station, and 32 intermediate tubular stations (the glass tube stations already installed). The average distance between stops would be from 500 to 800 meters. Near the main terminals, one in the North (Santa Candida) and another in the South (Pinheirinho), the municipality would install large facilities, with commerce and public services. The central station would be underground, next to the Post Office, the main building of the Federal University of Parana (UFPR), and the main commercial street.



Figure 5. Modern Tram, sketch of the central station Source: IPPUC (Institute of Planning and Urban Research of Curitiba), 1992

Integration terminals would continue to allow physical and fare integration. A new station would be deployed in the deactivated train station, preserving the architectural heritage, including a Railroad Museum. Here it would be possible to integrate this new mode with the axes East-West and Boqueiraõ, which would still operate buses. One of the main innovations of this project was an articulated vehicle 28m long (two wagons bonded together), sized to carry 300 users in each wagon. The control booth would be located at the ends, allowing the vehicle to move in both directions, with no need to turn. A Belgian self-guided bi-articulated tram, with a double energy source motor (electric and oil) had been proposed. The Modern Tram was a full project; but there were no financial resources for its implementation and, especially, for the operation of the proposed system. The project was abandoned, but the problems were still there. Immediately, the technicians from URBS (the municipal transportation agency) sought for simpler and cheaper solutions to achieve the desired operational results which had been proposed by the Modern Tram project. According to Carlos Ceneviva (2008), the technicians turned again to buses for a solution. In partnership with Volvo, the Swedish vehicle company with factories in Brazil, the joint team developed the project of a bi-articulated bus, for 270 passengers. In late 1992, 33 bi-articulated buses were running on the Boqueiraõ axis, carrying 130 thousand passengers per day. The bi-articulated bus followed some of the solutions already adopted with the deployment of direct lines, such as boarding on the same level of the bus floor, in glass tubular stations, and the fare was collected before boarding. According to Carlos Ceneviva, “the bi-articulated bus, without turnstiles and steps inside the vehicle (as is still usual in all Latin America), running in segregated lanes, is the most advanced level of development that can be achieved in an operation by a bus. Indeed, it could be considered a metro on tires.” (See Figures 6 and 7.)


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Figure 6. Sketches for the bi-articulated bus Source: URBS, 1992

Figure 7. Bi-articulated bus in operation Source: URBS, 2003

In 1995 the bi-articulated bus was deployed in the North and South axis, with 66 vehicles replacing the 138 regular buses. According to the engineer of URBS, Luiz Filla (2008), responsible for planning and operating the RIT, “even with the World Bank financial support approved for the implementation of the Modern Tram, the option to continue using buses in this main axis was due to the fact that it was a cheaper and simpler solution: it is versatile, easy to deploy and reached the same demand of modern trams or LRV, ensuring the same comfort

Learning from Failures 93 level and operational speed.” Another advantage is that it is simpler to operate a whole system running on a single technology (buses), rather than integrating two different ones. With the bi-articulated vehicles stopping at the tubular station with prepaid fare collection, 300 thousand passengers were transported daily in the NorthSouth axis, with operating speeds of 23 km/h. At the time, technicians foresaw that this new system would meet the demand for the next 15 years; so, just in 2010 the system would be exhausted and a technological innovation, probably with a new mode, would be necessary.


STAC (High-Capacity Transportation System): 1997 In that same year, 1995, technicians of IPPUC began studies for a high-capacity transportation system (STAC, in Portuguese). They envisaged a light-rail system, running underground in the central populated areas, and on elevated tracks in peripheral urban areas. Once again the resumption of a rail project went no further because the technicians of IPPUC came to the conclusion that the axis that should receive the STAC was the North-South, and not the axes Boqueiraõ and East, as originally proposed. Thus, the controversy over this and other sociotechnical details interrupted any attempt to fully implement the system. In 1997, an agreement was signed between the Municipality of Curitiba (PMC) and the Brazilian Company of Urban Trains (CBTU), to develop a highcapacity transportation system for the North-South axis. The project was drafted by a group of technicians from IPPUC, URBS, and CBTU. This new version of STAC would operate with a vehicle with tires on rail technology (mostly likely the Parisian metro), incorporated to the RIT, and would cover areas of the Metropolitan Region of Curitiba (IPPUC, 1997). To meet the expected passenger demand, the vehicle needed to carry 450 passengers. The system could carry up to 24,000 passengers per hour per direction throughout the day, with two cars with a 2-minute interval, and up to 48,000 passengers per hour per direction with three cars with an interval of 90 seconds, with operating speeds of 30 km/h. The trains would run on the street level, with an underground corridor in the central area. Twenty-two intermediate stations would be deployed, spaced at approximately 600 meters. The main points in favor of the STAC included: reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, reduction of noise levels, little interference in the urban landscape and, especially, a relative low cost for deployment due to its implementation on the existing segregated bus lanes. The project should be funded by the World Bank. Monorail: 1999 STAC was not deployed, but the technological strategy reappeared two years later in another project. A federal highway, BR-116, runs through the city of Curitiba, and what used to be a highway on the fringes of the city (around the time of the Master Plan in 1966), became a massive barrier. Despite all the efforts made by the municipality, the city had grown beyond the highway, which became a barrier to growth and a blockage against the physical and functional interaction of two very populated urban areas. BR-116 became, practically, a mix of a


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freight highway and a high-speed avenue with urban characteristics. The idea of using this highway as an urban road had been previously considered in 1966 by some local experts who were against the master plan that had won the national competition. This alternative plan was known as Plano Gama. In 1999, the municipality developed a study to implement an elevated monorail on the BR-116 (when the name of the highway changed to BR-476). (See Figure 8.) As Ardila (2004:205) put it, “a metro project would be a hot topic in the 2000 municipal election.” But before there was any further technical discussion on the rail alternative, the municipality proposed a change in the land use law along the highway—when the city population was about 1.6 million inhabitants. The transformation of the highway into an urban axis was based on the three principles already used in Curitiba: mass transportation would be the main urban occupation inducer, coupled with the redefinition of a parallel road system and new land use zoning, revised to encourage new uses such as housing, commerce, and services in a proposed high-density environment, in an area dominated by industrial buildings. The monorail was chosen because of its low levels of pollution, reduced noise levels and, as it was supposed to be on an elevated track, less visual impact, fewer interferences with the other modes and less space required for construction, allowing a quick deployment without major works. Moreover, adoption of the monorail would facilitate the viability of international financial resources at low interests (PMC, 2000). The total length of this route would be 20km along the BR-476, with access to the central area along one of the express lines (Boqueiraõ). Almost parallel to the North-South axis, as can be seen in Figure 1, the BR-476 corridor would serve as a complement to the most loaded axis of the Integrated Network of Transportation (RIT). The 33 stations proposed, with distances ranging from 800 m to 2,200 m, would have the same characteristics of the RIT’s tubular stations, allowing integration with several bus lines.

Figure 8. Monorail running along the former national highway BR 116 Source: Municipality of Curitiba, 1999

Learning from Failures 95 After a financial analysis, though, the technicians came to the conclusion that for the deployment of the monorail, the fare would be almost double the bus fare, making the project impossible economically and politically. Curitiba had another failed transit rail project. However, once again, it is fair to say that this project pointed the direction for a major transport innovation that was about to come.


The Green Line In 2002, with the financial support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), IPPUC and URBS proposed the Program for Urban Transportation in Curitiba. This program included the deployment of a Metropolitan Axis, which was mainly based on previous studies for the implementation of the monorail along the BR-476 highway. In this project, the center of the highway would be transformed into a mass transit corridor, with the deployment of three bus express lines. This new mass transit axis would receive 33 intermediate stations and three terminals for metropolitan integration. This new mass transit axis would be operated by a fleet of 40 bi-articulated buses. Along the axis, bike lanes and local traffic lanes would be implemented, and a green corridor would separate the local traffic and the central lanes. The stations would be accessible on two levels, with trenches and viaducts. Electronic equipment for traffic safety and operation included the expansion of the CTA, the deployment of closed circuit television and electronic inspection equipment, with the establishment of an Operation Control Center (OCC). All the grades of the new corridor were designed for a possible modal shift in the future, and near the stations a maximum inclination of 2 percent made the substitution of the buses for a LRT or subway feasible. During this period, however, there was a currency depreciation of the U.S. dollar against the Brazilian real, which was seen as a huge limitation as the project was being funded by the World Bank and paid for in U.S. dollars. Again due to financial restrictions, the project could not be fully implemented. In 2005, shortly after the election of a new municipal administration, the project was simplified. It was then decided to deploy only the first stage of the project: a link of the Southern corridor (from Pinheirinho Station) with the Boqueiraõ axis through which it would be possible to reach the city center. The intermediate stations were also simplified, and the tubular stations were adopted, with the difference that the feeder buses would also stop in those stations, facilitating integration with new express lines. The project was renamed the Green Line, with the aim of labeling it as an environmentally friendly project, with the inclusion of bicycle lanes, the use of native vegetation in the landscape project, and buses powered by bio-diesel. Another change was the relocation of tube stations, not only on the Green Line, but also on the Boqueiraõ axis. Originally all stations were located one in front of another; in the new project, in some points, both side stations were moved away from each other (one station more to the right and its opposite station more to the left); and in addition, technicians proposed widening the exclusive bus lane next to the stations by removing the parking lane outside, allowing buses to overtake at these points, as shown in Figure 9.


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Figure 9. Green Line: bypass lanes Source: Municipality of Curitiba, 1999

Those changes allowed the creation of a specific express line, called “ligeiraõ.” As in many subways in the world, different from the regular bi-articulated red buses of the express lines, which stop in every station, the “ligeiraõ” (blue bi-articulated buses) stop only in high-demand stations. All these characteristics made the project similar to a LRT system. The Green Line (first phase), including the Boqueiraõ axis, was completed in 2009. With these measures, the system capacity could be doubled, carrying 30,000 passengers per hour per direction, reaching commercial speed of 30 km/h, considering an interval of one minute between buses. Metro Curitiba: 2009 In 2005, the agreement between CBTU and IPPUC was renewed for the development of an alternative to the North-South axis, the most demanded, and where the operation on buses had supposedly reached its full capacity. For this renewed agreement, the chosen mode should be the subway (Almeida, 2008). The population of the city did not reach the expected 1.8 million inhabitants by 2010, but it has surpassed three million inhabitants in the metropolitan region. Even with the new Green Line axis absorbing part of the North-South demand, IPPUC foresaw a demand of 500 thousand passengers per day by 2014, with a maximum of 27 thousand passengers per hour per direction. This demand increase seems to contradict a most impressive increase in car ownership, which increased from 300,000 private vehicles in 1990 to more than 850,000 in 2010. From this point on, every transportation project in Curitiba must consider a metropolitan context.



Figure 10. Linear park along the proposed metro line Source: IPPUC (Institute of Planning and Urban Research of Curitiba), 2009

Two technical studies were to be contracted by the municipality: one for the evaluation of the urban and environmental impacts of the project in its different phases (design, construction, and operation), and the second for the technical project in itself, including geological, engineering, and financial analyses. These studies were commissioned after a public bidding, in February 2009. Nevertheless, since the project was first announced, IPPUC has proposed two methods for the construction of the subway in Curitiba: in the central area, the NATM (New Austrian Tunneling Method) technology was to be used along 2.5 km; and for being much cheaper, the other 19 km of subway tunnels would be constructed using cut and cover, a construction method in which the excavation is performed from the street level, in open air. The argument was that once the subway would run under the segregated corridors, only bus circulation would be interrupted during the works not car and pedestrian traffic. On the street level, the deactivated segregated bus lane would be converted into a huge linear park, with bike lanes, trees, and urban furniture, playgrounds, commercial kiosks, and the subway entrances and operational structures. (See Figure 10) Nevertheless, preliminary technical outputs have shown that because of geological and engineering aspects, NATM technology (the more expensive one) is needed to complete the work. The final decision for the construction of the subway is yet to be taken.

Conclusion: the Tracks of Curitiba From 1952, when the last tram ran on the streets of Curitiba, to the current subway design, every time the public transportation system running on buses showed signs of saturation, the municipality presented a rail project as the solution.


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However, parallel to each proposal arose another one using a refinement of the existing system as a solution, with faster deployment, lower costs, and, usually, presented as an efficient way to overcome the deficiencies of transport, thus prolonging the life of bus transit. In this paper we have presented eight complete rail projects proposed by the municipality to face the increase demand in public transportation, which has grown 380 percent between 1970 and 2010—while the population increased 270 percent. For each rail project, there was a brief description, an overview of the intended changes, and reasons for the abandonment of the project and its replacement by an alternative solution using buses. It was clear that every rail proposal had the best technological solutions when compared to the buses, both for increasing the capacity of the system and for reducing interferences with other surface modes of transportation—even the environmental impacts would be lowered, from noise to pollutant emissions. Still, like in any transportation project, particularly urban transportation, economic aspects are a key issue. In all projects for the resumption of rails in Curitiba, costs prevented their deployment. There were always two options: either creating a financial debt for the municipality just to adopt a new transportation mode, or taking technical creativity to its limits in order to re-conceive the bus mode. And in the last 40 years, the city was able to produce innovative solutions to minimize the non-implementation of the rail projects. Despite the fact that none of the rail solutions has been implemented, it is fair to conclude, in a such provocative way, that the city, known worldwide for its BRT, owes some of the most import innovations of the bus system to those failed rail projects. Figure 11 depicts a timeline of the proposed rail projects and the adoption of the solutions based on buses. Therefore, we believe that the concepts embraced by a socio-technical constructivist approach are crucial to support the understanding of what happened to public transportation in Curitiba in the last four decades. This approach gives us ground to recognize the relevance of failures and forgotten attempts during the historic, technological and social construction of the city transportation system. It also made us understand that the non-implementation of a certain system does not mean that everything done to design and develop alternative technologies or modes were lost. On the contrary, those plans might have stimulated the innovations in planning and technology by which Curitiba’s BRT became known worldwide.

Figure 11. Timeline: Rail projects (above line), Bus alternative projects (middle line), Key urban plans (bottom line) Source: Authors

Learning from Failures 99 It is impossible to predict whether the current subway project will be fully implemented or not, stimulating new solutions involving the bus system. However, we can assert that, from the point of view of the social construction of facts and artifacts theory, there is a rail city underneath the BRT city. Acknowledgment This research is funded by Fundaçaõ Arauca´ria and CNPq. Note


1. Or “artifacts” as they are called by Bijker (1987); see also Bijker, Hughes and Pinch (1989). In the case of Curitiba, artifacts can be taken as the different models of transportation systems implemented in the city during its history.

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