The Big Squeeze: Secrets to curing a city's woes

By GEOFF CUMMING

Motorways can kill a city. No city in the world can afford to rely solely on the motor car." Not that Jaime Lerner is about to tell Aucklanders what to do with their city - although he appears uniquely qualified to do so.

The president of the International Union of Architects is a former three-time mayor of Curitiba, the Brazilian city hailed internationally for managing population growth without major lifestyle and environmental fallout.

Curitiba mushroomed from a town of 500,000 in 1965 to 1.8 million today, with another million in the wider metropolitan area. But sprawl has claimed far less countryside than Auckland, with growth concentrated along transport corridors of the type Auckland continues to talk about.

And that's the key lesson from Lerner: while Auckland politicians and lobbyists have spent decades debating what to do about population growth and traffic congestion, Curitiba simply got on with the job.

Fast-growing cities the world over face the same problems, he says. "Better living, better housing, better transportation, better healthcare, better environment."

But whereas many cities get bogged down in the complexity of their problems, Lerner says there are always solutions - usually simple ones. "Every city in the world can improve their quality of life in less than two years. But in many cities there's a pessimistic approach. Most countries lack a generous view of their cities and their citizens."

Lerner, who went on to serve two terms as state governor, often entertains foreign dignitaries drawn to southern Brazil to study the secrets of Curitiba's seamless growth. A New Zealand delegation led by Morgan Williams, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, was so impressed last year it invited Lerner here to inspire our civic leaders and planners.

Visiting Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch this week, he ran into issues he's seen all over the world. He's quite used to big city mayors turning their palms up and saying their problems are too big and complex to solve.

"There's a lot of complexity peddlers all over the world. We should beat them with slippers," he told an Auckland audience.

"What's important is to start. The whole process of planning a city is that you don't have all the answers. You cannot waste time on big dialogue and seminars. You cannot have all the answers."

Faced with high population growth in the early 1970s, Curitiba headed down the path of "sustainable development". It came up with a master plan to concentrate growth along transport corridors, develop cheap, high-frequency bus services and keep cars out of the city centre.

Auckland, meanwhile, sprawled outwards and ignored public transport. The Mayor of Auckland City now wants more motorways to sustain the love affair with the car.

Auckland's version of a master plan, the 1999 Regional Growth Strategy, adopts the principle of concentrating growth along high-density corridors supported by public transport - an idea not unique to Curitiba. But business and road transport lobbyists want motorway building put before public transport spending, while high-density housing development has been piecemeal and poorly regulated.

Curitiba's master plan has withstood political swings. A central planning agency brought continuity and ensured planning for land use, transportation, education and health services is fully integrated. Auckland's local government structure lacks a central planning authority with teeth.

But Lerner did not come here to criticise and is envious of what he's seen - the lifestyle and the waterfront.

"Auckland has all the alternatives. If you want, you can live in a garden. We have slums."

But Auckland's growing pains were all too evident during his visit. Letters to the Herald complained of ugly, broom-closet apartments built in the name of high-density housing. An Audit Office report backed train passengers' complaints about delays, overcrowding, fare problems and breakdowns. The Auckland City Council conceded failure in its effort to locate bus services close to the Britomart rail station, promoted as a one-stop interchange. And when Lerner addressed civic leaders and planners about Curitiba's approach, Mayor John Banks was otherwise engaged.

Auckland missed the opportunity to plan for growth 25 years ago, says Banks (who did meet Lerner briefly). "It seems to me I'm now responsible for picking up those challenges at a time when it's arguably too late."

Its far-flung layout, twin harbours and "far greater" population pressure make Auckland's problems more complex than Curitiba's, he says. "It's just not as easy."

"With respect, [Lerner] has little or no understanding of the principles of the Resource Management Act ... which puts process well ahead of progress."

Banks says he wants to develop an affordable public transport system while completing the motorway network over the next 10 years, but there are huge obstacles, including the "$10 billion cost" and workforce shortages.

Such excuses cut no ice with Lerner, whose staccato, Latin drawl rolls out soundbites local politicians would die for.

"The city is not a problem, it's a solution," he tells a seminar.

"Urban acupuncture can ease a city's pressure points.

"Running a city is a commitment with simplicity ... The other commitment is a commitment with imperfection."

No city in the world can rely solely on the private car, he says.

"The car is like your mother-in-law. You should have a good relationship but you can't live [so] that the car directs your life.

"But to get people out of their cars, you must have a better alternative."

A rapid-transit system based solely on buses was the catalyst for Curitiba's unimpeded growth. While car ownership rates are not dissimilar to Auckland's - one car for every 2.5 people compared to Auckland's one to 1.8 people - 75 per cent of workers use public transport to get to work. Here, 6 per cent take the bus or train.

Interlinking bus services range from local feeders, loop services, express buses on main routes, and double-articulated buses carrying 270 passengers on dedicated lanes along the city's growth corridors.

Services expanded over 15 years from a radial pattern to a spider's web of circular and linear routes. Today, no one lives further than 500m from a bus stop and buses run no more than five minutes apart.

At peak times along the growth corridors, the double-articulated services run every 30 seconds. Passengers pay a flat fare of $1.35 before boarding, to minimise delays.

And if the bus is late? Companies are fined $200 for every minute's delay.

The roading network was redesigned around the high-density housing corridors, which have dedicated bus lanes in their centre with single lanes either side for local traffic. Running parallel, but a block or two back, one-way highways cater for longer-distance traffic.

If it sounds like a concrete jungle, an expanding network of parks and squares linked by cycleways covers 18 per cent of the city. Parking is banned in the inner city and the main streets are pedestrian malls.

The city's sustainable development policies extend beyond transport and housing, to environmental measures such as recycling. It is such a model of urban planning, that Francis Ford Coppola has used it as inspiration for his new movie Megalopolis.

A couple of hours' drive from Curitiba is the teeming megacity of Sao Paolo, where 18 million people are crowded into favelas (slums) and high-rises. Lerner's frustration over Sao Paolo's endless handwringing over how to revitalise the city centre has disturbing resonance for Aucklanders. "Every 20 years the same problems come again. Always that discussion and it never ends."

Lerner's approach is "let's do it." His simple steps to progress include political will, strategic vision and public acceptance. "If the people understand why it's important to leave their cars, to separate garbage, they will help you to make it happen.

"You can make a lot of mistakes - the people will help you to correct."

The concentration of people in major cities is a worldwide trend linked to technological advances and the transition from industrial to service-based economies. Pessimists predict a Blade Runner landscape in the cities of the not-to-distant future, but Lerner is more optimistic, noting that our oldest cities have changed little over 300 years.

"What is revolutionary is the diminishing scale of [workplaces]. Services are more spread. You can live closer to your house. It's a big revolution, and it's for the better."

The biggest mistake planners make is separating the living, working and leisure activities in a city. "It's the mix of components and incomes that makes a human city and it's more human when any child could design it."

But to merge living and working areas successfully, cities must develop attractive alternatives to the private car. It needn't cost billions - a very good surface-level public transport system can be built very quickly, he says.

"What was done in Curitiba has to be done in many cities in the world very fast. You cannot sacrifice a whole generation waiting 30 years to build one or two underground lines. You can transport more people more quickly on the surface and it's 100 times less expensive per kilometre."

Auckland is too spread-out for its population and needs to move to a structure where people can live and work in close proximity, supported by good public transport. "What's important is that it's not a fragmented city, not just politically but physically.

"It's possible here in this wonderful landscape, so wonderful a place and I'm sure that it will happen. Don't wait."