[sustran] article on Latin American urban transport problems

[Paul Barter]

Dear friends, Despite some hyperbole, there may be useful information here.
I found this on the alt-transp list.     Paul.

Sunday, October 12, 1997

Think L.A. Is Bad? In Brazil, Gridlock Can Span 100 Miles
By STAN LEHMAN, Associated Press


  SAO PAULO, Brazil--A summer downpour had once again flooded the
riverside highway, and Yvette Piha sat stuck in a 60-mile-long
traffic jam. For 15 hours. "For the first time, I realized what a
fragile giant Sao Paulo is," said Piha, a psychologist at the
University of Sao Paulo.
  For his part, Wellington Gaspar turns up the Vivaldi on his
car radio and settles in for the 1 1/2-mile drive down
skyscraper-lined Avenida Paulista. It takes him more than 60
minutes--and he doesn't even go during rush hour.
  "This happens practically every day, so I'm used to it," the
insurance salesman says. "The trick is to sit back and relax."
  Sao Paulo, whose 10 million people make it South America's
largest metropolis, is strangling on its own size. Other big
cities across the continent aren't far behind. Decades of
haphazard growth and little or no urban planning have caught up
with the region's newly emerging economies. Today, too many cars
compete for too little space.
  In the Peruvian capital of Lima, a city of 6.5 million, the
number of cars soared when the government relaxed import
restrictions in the early '90s. By 1995, there were 47,000
commuter vans plying the city's streets--up from 6,000 three years
earlier.
  In Colombia, the 7 million residents of Bogota have no subway
and commute by bus, taxi and car. With lower import tariffs, the
number of cars has risen 12%, but the road system didn't grow
accordingly. As a result, a trip across town can take three hours
during rush hour.
  The glut of cars in Bogota is aggravated by aggressive and
badly trained drivers, poorly laid-out roads and uncoordinated
traffic lights.
  "The long-term decisions that should have been made long ago
have not been made," says Alvaro Pachon, owner of a transportation
consulting firm and head of the economics department at Bogota's
Javeriana University.
  In Brazil, Sao Paulo is a synonym for nightmare traffic.
  On weekdays, more than 3 million vehicles clog Sao Paulo's
10,000 miles of roadways, and 600 new cars hit the streets each
day.

  The city's Traffic Engineering Department calculates that in
morning and evening rush hours, traffic jams across the city
average 53 miles in length--when everything is working normally. A
heavy rain, car breakdown or road detour can cause chaos.
  That's what happened June 3, when a 6-inch crack appeared in
a concrete bridge that crosses the Tiete River and the riverside
drive. Traffic under the bridge was blocked, and within hours a
traffic jam nearly 100 miles long formed. It paralyzed the city
for nearly 10 hours.
  "Sao Paulo is on the verge of a collapse," says Candido Malta
Campos, an urban planner at the University of Sao Paulo.
Campos estimates traffic jams cost the city--Brazil's
business and financial center--more than $9 billion a year.
  "Employee productivity drops, businessmen arrive late--or not
at all--for their appointments, and merchandise is delivered
behind schedule," he says.
  Traffic has worsened with the success of a 1994
anti-inflation plan that allowed many lower-class Brazilians to
buy a car for the first time. Since then, the number of cars in
Sao Paulo has jumped more than 12%.
  But the problem had been simmering for almost 30 years, as
city officials failed to deal with Sao Paulo's growing needs.
  The last comprehensive city plan was drawn up in 1968, Campos
says. It stipulated that by the time Sao Paulo's population
reached 10 million, the city should have five subway lines
covering 62 miles plus 84 miles of U.S.-style, restricted-access
freeways.
  Since the plan was adopted, not a single freeway has been
built. And there are only two subway lines just 27 miles long,
which are used by about 2.5 million people a day.
  Venezuelans suffer from the same lack of action. In 1985,
authorities tried to draw up a traffic control plan for Caracas,
the capital, but gave up because they couldn't agree on what had
to be done, says Angela Di Domenico of Venezuela's Environmental
Ministry.
  The result is chronic traffic jams in a city where gasoline
is among the cheapest in the world and people use cars even for
one-block trips to the bakery or newsstand.
  The Sao Paulo Planning Department claims that there is not
enough money in the budget to fix transit problems, but Campos,
the urban planner, calls that "nonsense."
  "The money is there," he says. "The problem is that it is
being spent on grandiose vote-getting projects that unfortunately
still dazzle the voter."
  Campos cites the city government's decision to spend $1.1
billion to build a tunnel used by only 1,200 cars an hour at its
busiest times.
  "The money would have been enough to build a 20-kilometer
[12-mile] subway line carrying45,000 passengers an hour," Campos
says.
  Traffic was slightly improved during a July-to-September
pollution-control program that required motorists to leave cars at
home one day a week. The system reduced the volume of cars by
600,000 a day and cut daily emissions of carbon monoxide by at
least 550 tons.
  Meanwhile, authorities are debating a new 18-page urban plan
aimed at reducing traffic in Sao Paulo. It suggests locating
residential buildings in banking and business districts and
encouraging industries to move to low-income areas, where most of
their work force lives.
  Rising air pollution from car exhausts also helped remedy
traffic problems--at least temporarily--in Chile. In Santiago, the
capital, a pollution alert in August led authorities to order 60%
of the city's 350,000 vehicles off the streets.
Chile's expertise with traffic problems prompted Colombia to
invite four Chilean transit police officers to Bogota to run a
six-month training program.
  "The transit problem is not just a police problem," said Col.
Nelson Molina, one of the Chilean officers. "The entire population
must get involved, and results are measured in the very long
term."


Copyright Los Angeles Times

(reposted here in good faith for the purpose of research and education,
 and not for any commercial gain)