“Every City Can Improve its Quality of Life.”

In a discussion at the BRT terminal Centro Civico in Curitiba, Brazil.

What improvements can BRT systems bring about with regard to noise and pollution?

You need to keep in mind that emissions from cars are responsible for more than 80 percent of a city’s carbon footprint; buses only contribute about eight percent. Even using diesel buses is still better than having thousands of cars. But when you have a good system, you naturally have to improve the engine. Engines have to move to hybrid or biofuels, and many cities are doing that already. But most important is how the bus network will connect with the normal city life. First, you need a functioning system, then you can introduce biofuels, fuel cells, hybrids or electric buses.

To what extent can the design – or re-design – of an urban center shape mobility? What basic concepts do planners and politicians need to pay attention to?

Every city can improve its quality of life, it doesn’t matter how big it is or what financial condition it’s in. My advice to planners and politicians is: Think about what you want and do it fast, in one or two years. That’s not to say that planning doesn’t take time, but there are some focal ideas you can implement very fast. They can provide new energy to the city: Turn a street into a pedestrian mall, lay the foundations of a BRT system. That’s what I call urban acupuncture. It’s done not instead of urban planning, but to help urban planning. Innovation is about starting something, and to leave some room for people to correct you.

What role do buses, cars, and other modes of transportation play in a sustainable mix?

The only way to improve mobility is to continually improve the quality of public transport, not in penalizing people who use their car. When the frequency and reliability drops, people do not perceive it as a system anymore, but dismiss it as “just buses” and go back to their old ways. I have nothing against the car, all I’m saying is that it depends on the way you use it. On routine itineraries, you have to have very good public transport, then people will take the bus or subway. For leisure or longer trips you can of course use your car. The car is like your mother-in-law: You have to have a good relationship with her, but you cannot let her run your life! We cannot only depend on the private car. We need a smart alternative for individual public transport: a car where you’re not the owner of the car.

At Jaime Lerner’s office in Curitiba, Brazil.

You are suggesting expanding car- or ride-sharing schemes like Daimler’s car2go?

I mean something completely novel that goes beyond car- or ride-sharing. Such a car has to be very small, electric, recyclable; it has to be part of a larger system. It should share the bike lanes since it travels at low speeds of 20-25 km/h and has a range of about 50 km. I’m designing a car called Dock Dock, which is one-fourth the size of a smart, and still even I can fit inside it. It becomes part of the mobility mix. You can drive your car to a bus terminal, board an express bus and then switch to a Dock Dock for the last mile.

You are not the first to argue that the future lies with cleaner engines and electric cars.

It’s not really about changing the engine technology. It depends on where the energy comes from. Electric drives can improve air quality, but you still have congestion. So electric vehicles alone are not the solution. But if you have an EV that does not just transport you once or twice a day, but transports 30 or 40 people over the course of a day, then change happens. I have so far built five prototypes of the Dock Dock and we are now making three pre-series cars. We need to give potential partners an idea what they look like. With some luck, Curitiba could be again the first city in the world to debut a private-public car.

How much will it cost?

Zero, the only thing you pay for is the usage. You are not the owner of the car; it should be operated by a public-private partnership. But it doesn’t require you to give up your own car, so you have something roomier for longer trips. If the car industry understands this concept, they can offer a whole, integrated system. You’d buy a regular car and it comes with 500 hours of Dock Dock; the usage is part of your automobile purchase. It will be an additional, premium option of public transport.

CURRICULUM VITAE

+++ Brazilian architect and urban planner, born in 1937 +++ lives and works in Curitiba, capital of the state of Paraná +++ served as the city’s mayor for three terms and state governor for two terms +++ father of the world’s first Bus Rapid Transit or BRT system (Rede Integrada de Transporte/RIT) introduced in 1974 +++ has been recognized with numerous awards, most recently the Leadership in Transport Award by the International Transport Forum at the OECD in 2011 and the Globe Sustainable City Award in 2010 +++ founder and director of the Instituto Jaime Lerner and Jaime Lerner Associated Architects, an architecture and urban planning firm with 20 employees that advises clients worldwide +++ participated in the Symposium of China Bus Rapid Transit Initiative in Shanghai in 2005 to promote BRT systems in China +++ author of several books, among them Acupuntura Urbana (2003) +++

Interview: Steffan Heuer

Photography: Rafael Dabul

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