São Paulo to introduce women only metro carriages

 

You would have thought that in a civilised society it would not be necessary to have segregated transport. However, the high incidence of sexual harassment in crowded public areas has resulted in the São Paulo Legislative Assembly approving a bill making it mandatory for the CPTM and metro networks to include women only carriages at peak hours.

Following Rio de Janeiro who already introduced them in 2006 São Paulo will now have pink carriages. The bill will now be signed by Sao Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin after which the metro and CPTM train operators will have 90 days to put the pink cars on the tracks.

In Rio the platforms have police enforcement officers to prevent men from, intentionally or unintentionally, boarding the wrong cars. Presumably, São Paulo will have a similar setup.

This type of harassment prevention scheme is already in place in many countries known to have a sexist culture with high harassment rates including Japan, Egypt, India, Iran, Mexico, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Dubai and of course Brazil.

In Sao Paulo as elsewhere it will provide an instant solution to those who suffer public harassment on public transport, which is clearly a good thing but presumably will not do much to educate and change the culture that makes the law necessary in the first place.

São Paulo in Statistics: How people move around

Just as a city's geography defines its transport needs, a city's transport network defines its future spatial layout and urban development. In other words it is both, a response to, and a driver of growth.

In the same way, the development of private transport is both caused and inhibited by the availability and quality of alternative public systems. 

Old world mega cities such as London and New York have extensive metro networks, essentially because they started earlier and have had a head start in terms of wealth. 

São Paulo, however, is much more similar to Mexico city. It trails far behind Mexico in terms of track kilometres built but the seemingly never-ending sprawl that caracterise both cities means that the car is king.

Below are some interesting infographics from the same dataset (LSE cities) we used last month to look at where people live in São Paulo. This time they offer an insight into how people move around in each city.

You can clearly see the difference between Hong Kong, Mumbai or Istanbul, cities which have cheap, efficient and accessible public transport and São Paulo or Johannesburg which have heavily strained public infrastructure failing to adequately connect people from where they want to go to where they live and vice versa.

Shanghai is investing heavily in metro and rail transport but in the meantime the humble bicycle is alleviating congestion on larger transportation systems.

Huge potential for metro and train growth

A very compact city means a lot of walking

Despite the sealink most people stay on one side or the other

Informal minibus dependency

Still has high car usage despite congestion charge

Colonial era train network is still main transport method

The city with the most bicycle journeys

São Paulo attempts dual tunnelling a metro line for the first time

Tatuzão and Megatatuzão side by side

As of this week the extension to the Line 5 metro line is being worked on by two giant Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) instead of one. This is the first time ever São Paulo, or Brazil, has ever attempted dual tunnelling on a single metro line.

The extension, which runs from Campo Belo to Chácara Klabin station in Vila Mariana and costs R $7.5 billion, will add another 12km of track and 11 new stations.

However don’t expect it to be open any time soon. The new TBM humourously known as Tatuzão and it’s partner in crime Megatatuzão will only dig at a rate 15metres per day. That means the 1.9 km tunnel between LargoTreze, and the first of the new stations, Adolfo Pinheiro, is expected to be completed only by January next year.

So we can wait a while for the extended Lilac Line 5 to connect with the Blue Line 1 and Green Line 2 . Still, progress is progress.

What São Paulo's metro will look like in 2030

São Paulo's metro network in 2012

Despite the size and importance of the city São Paulo has one of the youngest metros in the world, line 1 having been constructed only in 1968, with the other 4 following afterwards. It is regarded as modern by regional standards and is complemented by over 250km of suburban rail estension (CPTM) some stations of which allow transfer to the main metró network.

Nevertheless the system is simply not extensive enough for the population it aims to serve and witnesses notoriously busy rush hours so it's no surprise to hear speculation over which new lines or stations are needed and what is planned for the future.

Less common, however, is to receive an insight into what transport improvements are truly planned by local authorities. Below is São Paulo government's alleged projection of what the network should look like by 2030.

Vision of São Paulo's metro and rail network in 2030

As you can observe that's an awful lot of lines yet to be built and, as anyone familiar with timings on Brazilian projects will know, all we have to do now is wait (and hope)..

Via Quatro: São Paulo's newest metro line

The new Line 4 metro announced this week extended opening hours (04:40 to 00:00) plus a weekend service as well as some additional stations. Here are some interesting facts about the newest metro line in São Paulo:

The trains are not Brazilian

It was built by Rotem which is a South Korean company owned by the Hyundai Group. Believe it or not the trains were built in South Korea and transported by sea to Santos where they were towed to São Paulo. So whilst they are now confined to travelling 12km East or West across São Paulo ad back again they are actually well travelled trains.

It has taken over 7 years to get this far

Building had been in progress since 2004 and although operational operational there are still stations yet to be opened.

Maximum capacity is staggeringly high

It is expected to carry up to 970,000 different passengers daily once it is running at full capacity. The trains carry 25% more passengers than any of the other trains on the other metro lines.

Engineering accidents have characterized the building work

There were no less than 10 major engineering accidents during construction, the most severe being the collapse of the site at Pinheiros causing an 80m crater. The consortium in charge denied there were any casualties and this is why despite the insistence of the families whose houses and cars fell into the crater it took 4 days to find the first victim and 13 days the last one. 7 people died. The Consortium later denied any engineering malpractice and attributed the accident to “fortes chuvas” (heavy rainfall)

The trains have no drivers

Line 4 users driverless technology meaning the trains are operated remotely from a control station and there is no human being onboard the train who can control its movement. These are the first driverless trains in Latin America.

And here is the official ad for the new line:

Funneling people on to metro trains

Overcrowding on São Paulo's metro

There are so many people in central São Paulo it can get quite claustrophic at times. There are some places in particular which have a tendency to get overcrowded quickly. One of these is the platforms at most of  the central metro stations.

The architects obviously already anticipated this problem and designed funnel shaped rails to make sure travellers are waiting at the right spot and are guided on to the trains quickly.

 

Things are not always very organised around here but these people funnels are very well observed, so well in fact, it almost looks like sheep herding>

Book vending machines in the metró

When I first saw them I though they were snack machines but when I got closer I realised there were no Mars bars, Coca-Cola or M&Ms and in their place were books! In fact in many central stations in São Paulo you can only find book vending machines, nothing else is for sale on the platforms or hallways. And they're quite affordable too at between R$2 and R$5 (1 to 2€) although there does seem to be a disproportionate number of religious books making me wonder if this is another covert money making operation by the IURD (see old post on drive-through churches..)

Slavery, economic apartheid & barbecue protests

123 years ago today Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil signed the Lei Áurea, or Golden Law in Rio de Janeiro and thereby ended a phenomena which to a large extent has formed and influenced the Brazilian population and society we have today. That phenomena was slavery. And perhaps unsurprisingly for a country which left it that late to abolish the practice and which only did so, long after its independence from colonial Portugal and at a time when it by in large no longer needed slaves (cheap European workers were starting to fill the gap) the great inequalities left behind are still clearly visible today. Some of them are quite shocking to the outsider:

One of the first things you notice when in São Paulo is that there is an incredible gap in the wealth of its inhabitants and that society is effectively divided into economic strata. Of course there have always been the haves and the have nots, and this not the place to descend into socio-political theory, but in São Paulo it feels more like the have everythings and the have jackshits, pardon my language. Evidently it is somewhat more complex than this and there are many strata but what is really interesting is the way in which, even residing in close proximity, sharing the same city, the same resources, the upper ones have virtually no contact with the lower ones. The “uppers” do not even contemplate the use of public transport, they don’t move outside of “upper” districts, and certainly don’t socialize with anyone other than other “upper”. Obviously the “lowers” primarily for economic reasons don’t use private transport, frequent upper districts or socialize with uppers and in many buildings to avoid the uncomfortable situation of having to mix with somebody of a different social echelon architects specifically build separate entrances, separate lifts, separate gateways. The recently departed president, Lula, called it “economic apartheid” and there are some who read in racial undertones (skin colour gets lighter as you work your way up the echelons) although my gut feeling is that economics is indeed a far greater factor.

 

But as much as the theory is interpretable and arguable the practice is stark and blunt. A curious example I have to hand is the recent protests in the very clean-sounding “upper” neighbourhood of Higienopolis described by Mark Kobayashi Hillary in Computer Weekly. As is well known São Paulo has desperate transportation problems, a huge overdependence on private vehicles and an urgent need for improved public transport infrastructure (shhhh what do you mean, how on earth are they going to host the World Cup?!). Fortunately the new line 4 is already under construction and partially open and there are plans for a line 6 which runs from Vila Clarice to Anália Franco passing through Higienopolis-Mackenzie. Yes this is where we come back to the “uppers” and the “lowers” because the residents of Higienopolis are up in arms at the prospect of having “lowers” reach their neighbourhood through the horrors of an efficient public transport system. So whilst in other parts of the world there would be protests at the lack of access to public transport in your neighbourhood in São Paulo we have reverse protests whereby the residents try to block any plans to build a station in the affluent parts of town. As Hillary calls it this is a full scale reverse class war which has made the local administration succumb and reroute the line. I have heard similar stories of re-routed buslines so that bus stops are kept well away from high-end shops and restaurants of another “upper” neighbourhood, Itaim Bibi.

Now, no post is fun without a good finish so let me know your thoughts on this Facebook event which plans to host a huge street barbecue and party tomorrow afternoon outside the main shopping mall in Higienopolis complete with street food, street music open to all residents (upper and lower) of São Paulo in order to create a semi-spontaneous event so large the authorities will have to respond to the event manifesto: a full investigation into the cancelling of the metro station and a formal response from Governor Geraldo Alckmin. I just checked and there are 54,000 attendees. Now that's a lot of burgers amd sausages….

Maybe they are preparing for tomorrow's barbecue..