[sustran] "Southern" countries to look out for.

[Paul Barter]

Adam Karp wrote
>Nice overview, Paul.  Latin American countries are also on the horizon of
>innovative transportation technologies (and the revival of low-tech common
>sense).  Take, for example, the oft-quoted example of Curitiba, Brazil and
>the work of Jorge Wilheim (does anyone know his email? or has anyone read
>his 1996 book "Fax: Memoirs from the Near Future"?  Mexico City and
>Sao Paolo are also cities worth focusing on.

Aaah!  Thanks Adam for reminding us about Curitiba.  For those who don't
know, Curitiba is a city of about 1.5 million (i think) in Southern Brazil
which is famous for a number of things, but mainly its innovative and very
successful system of high quality busways.  Jonas Rabinovitch, who now
works at the UNDP in NY was also involved in the Curitiba story I hear. The
exact system is a little complex to explain.  Prof. Robert Cervero of
University of California at Berkely has produced the best impartial
explanation and review that I have seen:

Cervero, R. (1995). Creating a Linear City with a Surface Metro: The Story
of Curitiba, Brazil (Working Paper 643, National Transit Access Center
(NTrac), University of California at Berkeley.)

It has been a mystery to many in this field, as to why Brazil has been able
to do so much with busways but they have never really taken off in most
other places.  Proposals for Karachi, Jakarta, Bangkok and other Asian
cities have all apparently been cancelled or changed to LRT proposals.

Busways versus lightrail is a big (and technical) debate...which I don't
really want to get into right now.  But it seems clear to me that in low
income countries busways may have a lot of potential...any ideas why they
are not being pushed harder?

A. Rahman Paul Barter
Sustainable Transport Action Network for Asia & the Pacific (SUSTRAN)
c/- AP2000,  PO Box 12544,  50782 Kuala Lumpur,  Malaysia.
Fax: +60 3 253 2361,  E-mail: tkpb at barter.pc.my

PLEASE NOTE: From 19 May until 15 July I am in Perth, Australia.
During that time please reach me at <barter at central.murdoch.edu.au>