November 2nd and 4th
Session Eleven: Transportation Justice: Case Study of Curitiba, Brazil 

This session will focus on inequities and injustices in the transportation sector. We will be guided by the following questions:

1. What are the adverse social consequences of transportation injustice?
2. What policies can be introduced and supported to promote transportation equity and justice?

ASSIGNED READINGS FOR SESSION TEn

1. Rabinovitch, UNDP,sustainable transportation planning in Brazil – working paper #19, 1995 
   • Curitiba was established in the 17th century
   • During the second half of the twentieth century, the population exploded
   • New master plan created in 1964
     • decongestion of the central area
     • preservation of the historic center
     • demographic management
     • economic support to urban development
     • infrastructure improvement
     • changing the radial urban growth to a linear urban growth
   • Objectives
     • Encourage economic development by reducing the cost of mobility, trade, and exchange within the city
     • Reduce the indirect costs of other infrastructure improvements such as water, sewage, electricity, and communications
     • Assist in preserving historic buildings and areas within the city center
   • Land use legislation
     • Structural sectors: divide the city into five main linear growth structures
     • Ban new commercial buildings in the city center and incentivize housing development
     • Ban cars, parking, and supermarkets in congested areas
     • Ban high rise construction above five stories
     • Ban banks and other financial institutions from the ground floors.
     • preserve historical buildings
     • Designate “connecting roads” off the five axes and incentivize transit oriented development, green spaces, and infrastructure installation
     • Designate “collecting roads” off the “connecting roads” off the five “linear growth structures”
     • Preserve river basins and design for flood protection
       • Ban industrial construction in these areas
     • Enforcement
       • Regulatory and planning tools
       • Economic incentives
       • Physical instruments (ie bike paths)
       • Informational tools
     • Impact of land use/ transportation system
       • Environmental and quality of life impacts
       • Housing densities and land use
       • Public transit
       • Pedestrian areas
       • Traffic and circulation
       • Overall impacts of the land use and transport system
2. how radical ideas turned Curitiba into Brazil’s ‘green capital’
   • Brasilia was redesigned as a bird in flight with radial corridors of transit wings, and administrative offices in the brain.
   • Curitiba decided instead to protect historic buildings while adding transit in a way that helped the city improve without fundamentally changing
   • To get around opposition to bans on cars by incumbent institutions including commercial shops in the area, Curitiba completed projects very rapidly, permanently blocking streets overnight in order to prevent petitions and injunctions by the business owners.
   • “Democracy is not consensus. Democracy is a conflict that is well managed.”
3. Shifting people out of cars Curitiba, Brazil’s transport and zoning policies
   • Curitiba invents brt
   • Brt spreads around the world
   • Master plan integrates urban planning with transit
   • Good quality mass transit system
     • Extensive network of routes
     • A single unified fare system
     • Quality infrastructure
       • Busses
       • Stops
     • Support for social welfare systems
   • Today about 85% of the Curitiba population uses the bus system
   • Curitiba’s BRT is financially self-sufficient, requiring no government funding
   • Leadership has always had a clear vision
   • Initial financial support was enough to establish a self-sufficient system
   • Mixed public/private roles with clear division of responsibilities
   • Quality assurance is done by the government

Other Notes

• Abolition is the system of the act of abolishing a system or an institution
• Police abolition
  • Who gets to define deviance
  • Who gets to define crime
  • Who gets to decide punishments
• Abolition is a vision of what we are for rather than what we are against
• The central roles of policing are
  • Surveil
  • Frighten/ Intimidate/ Terrorize
  • Deter
  • Capture
  • Harm/ Kill
• The cure for social problems is social programs
• The cause of crime is poverty
• How would we respond to deviance
• Abolition movement in America dates back to before the civil war
  • Slave catchers
  • Sheriffs/ convict lease
• 92% of the people incarcerated have never been convicted of a crime
  • Plea bargain: admitted to a crime in exchange for some lesser sentence.