The Future is On the Surface: Curitiba Opens the Green Line

Despite being one of Brazil's wealthiest cities with some of the highest car ownership ratios in the country, 45% of trips in Curitiba are made using public transport. This is in part because Curitiba's transport and planning professionals have systematically integrated its innovative public transportation system with land-use planning. Curitiba is known as the birthplace of bus rapid transit (BRT) and has consistently expanded and upgraded its bus-based public transportation system in order to improve capacity and performance. Today the system includes 390 bus routes and 2,000 vehicles and carries roughly 2.1 million passengers every day. Curitiba recently opened its first new BRT corridor since the 1980s. The 18-km Green Line, as it is called, was formerly a national highway dotted with truck stops and lumberyards before the city created legislation to convert the highway into a bus corridor and turn this underutilized area into a mixed-use corridor that can accommodate up to half a million new residents. Although the Green Line currently has more capacity than is needed, the project represents the government's efforts to keep the city's growing population within the municipal limits, by promoting density in an underutilized area while preserving green space in the city.