Pictures of the Future   Spring 2007

Buses and Clean Water

Interview with Jaime Lerner

What’s the key to improving the quality of life in cities?

Lerner: The key is to simply start. That’s often not as easy as it sounds, because many people in city councils are afraid to risk change. Instead, they have drawn-out discussions, postpone necessary decisions, and are generally pessimistic about change. Such pessimism is often a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the foot-dragging wastes time, and the cities’ problems continue to grow. I’ve been invited to a huge number of seminars over the past 30 years to discuss these problems, but I’ve never been invited to talk about solutions. So, getting started is half the battle, and innovation means tackling the issue of change.

What changes were essential in order to transform the third-world city of Curitiba into a livable urban environment?

Lerner: Our situation was like that of many other cities; for example, we didn’t have money for a subway. We therefore sat down to figure out how to create an optimal mass transit system that would be inexpensive, reliable and, above all, fast. The solution was the "Bus Rapid Transit System" (BRT) we established, whereby buses travel in special lanes closed to all other traffic. Passengers enter the bus at stops via special boarding tubes that are at the same height as the bus doors. Passengers pay in the tubes, rather than on the bus. Today, the system pays for itself and transports two million people per day, with the buses traveling at approximately one-minute intervals. It has led to a traffic reduction of up to 30 % in Curitiba, while investment by private companies in our city has increased significantly.

Do you have any more examples?

Lerner: During my term as governor of Paraná, the bays around Curitiba were becoming more polluted and fish stocks were declining. Our response was to get fishermen to "fish" for garbage, which we bought from them. Basically, the key thing here was to establish a system of mutual co-responsibility that would create a win-win situation for everyone. So when the weather isn’t good for fishing, garbage is fished out of the water, and the more garbage is fished out, the cleaner the water becomes. In turn, the cleaner the water, the more money the fishermen make.

How were you able to get around the bureaucracy and implement these changes?

Lerner: The main factor here is speed. Changes must be implemented very rapidly—on the one hand, to sidestep the slow-moving bureaucracy, but also to ensure that there’s no time to doubt what you’re doing. To accomplish this, you need to be stubborn. You also have to understand that democracy isn’t always about consensus; there’s also conflict. Imagine, for example, that you’re playing a violin at a concert and you notice that maybe a fifth of the audience doesn’t like your playing. Well, I wouldn’t stop playing and try to reach a consensus. You’ve got to play to the end. You can talk to the dissatisfied people later.

Could the Curitiba concept also be applied to other cities, even much bigger ones?

Lerner: Of course. We established our BRT in 1974, and today 83 cities use our system—including Los Angeles. In order to prove that it’s easier to implement such a system than some people think, we even set up a small test line in New York City in 1992. At first people said, "The traffic department won’t let you do it." So we went to the traffic department, and they told us that the transport workers’ union wouldn’t stand for it. So we went to the union to explain our idea. They said that handicapped people would never accept it. We then met with the handicapped people’s association—and five days later our system was up and running.

What does it take to create a truly livable city in the 21st century?

Lerner: If you want to improve the quality of life in cities in the future—and make urban environments more humane—you have to address three issues: mobility, sustainability and social diversity. My experience has shown me that the future of urban mobility lies above the surface—if nothing else, because of cost considerations. Consequently, the quality of above-ground systems must be improved. As far as sustainability is concerned, you can substantially improve the quality of life in a city if people drive less, live closer to their jobs and separate their garbage for recycling purposes. If you want to make a city more humane, you need to have a balanced mix of different income and age groups, races and religions. That’s because people will only feel responsible for their city if they also feel that they themselves are respected.

Do you drive or take the subway?

Lerner: Actually, I walk—but only a couple of meters, because there’s a BRT bus stop right in front of my house.

                                                                                      Interview by Florian Martini