The Past Week: Trailor

This is one of my many photos from Parque Tanguá, which is where I spent most of today - my last full day here in Curitiba.

Our project is done and the presentation went pretty good.

More on the end of our workshop and my day about the city to come....

***Photo page updated: http://picasaweb.google.com/aaronnbland/BrazilBlogSupplementalPhotos?feat=directlink

Workshop Info

For the past few days we've been heading to Universidade Positivo in the afternoons to work on our workshop goings-ons. My group has been organizing the data that is relevant to us into a cohesive (single) spreadsheet, collecting bits of information from various electronic documents and printed maps and matching names with lot numbers. It has been time consuming but today we finally started crunching some of our agolmerated numbers.

Also today, I started working with a GIS shapefile of the lots in Vila Nova. I organized the individual lots into our various "Sectors" (about 40) and our "Supersectors" (6) so that we could visually represent our measures of socioeconomic status. The map pictured below is our sectors, which are organized based on street frontage and access. We had to make the Supersectors becuase we had so few surveys completed and many sectors had less than 3 surveys from them, and therefore not enough data to draw any decent conclusions.

Out of about 850 lots we had around 140 surveys, which were sorted into the sectors that they came from via a fun process of matching the address (and possibly a name) on the paper survey to a spreadsheet on a computer that had addresses paired with lot numbers. Then the lot was found on the colorful map and the sector number was put on the survey and the survey into the appropriate pile. It felt like CSI: Urban Planning.





































Our workspace at the university.

Unilivre

So today we went to Universidade Livre do Meio Ambiente, the Open University of the Environment, or Unilivre, which is in a city park. The building is an amazing structure, in style of Swiss Family Robinson, with separate rooms and a spiral ramp walkway to an observation deck where you can look down on the quarry lake or see a distant view of the city’s skyline. The decking is made of old power/phone line poles. It is a remarkable, if drafty, place.

We had a lecture from Reinaldo Piloto, a civil engineer, about the city of Curitiba’s parques e praças (parks and plazas). There are a lot of parks in Curitiba, so it lasted a while. The main goal of most of the parks is to help the environmental integrity of the rivers. Many informal settlements are near rivers and parks can help prevent these from popping back up after the people are moved to housing projects by putting things like soccer fields and basketball courts where the houses would be. I thought it interesting that the main point sources for water pollution that they worry about here is residential, when in America we worry about more industrial or commercial polluters. Others provide flood mitigation with detention ponds, with no water level controls; the floods here are all flash floods.

We took the Linha Turismo to the Torre Panorâmica. The 360° views of the city were amazing! You could really see the lines of transit-oriented development and how the zoning around the bus BRT lines is so distinct; there are not many mid-rise buildings.

Dinner was awesome. We were approached by a few drifting hippie types, one of whom we have spoken to a few times before. We ended up inviting them to sit with us as they had the drink that Calvin bought for them as payment for a necklace. We all talked in a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish for a while until they finished the drink and moved on.

It’s actually getting cold now. I like it, but our sliding glass window doesn’t really shut 100% so we have to leave it cracked or the wind will howl through it, so I guess we’ll be getting all bundled and cozy in our beds from now on. We’re heading to Ilha do Mel for the weekend, so I won’t be able to post again until Sunday. The train ride is supposed to be amazing and vertigo-inducing and the island is an ecological preserve that you need to take a ferry to. Should be awesome.






















A self-portrait on the spiral walkway up to the observation deck at Unilivre.















People participating in the program Lixo Que Não é Lixo, or trash that is not trash, in which 70% of the city's trash is recycled by its residents, who sort recyclables and exchange them for food.
















View from the observation tower. 110 meters up (360 feet) and about 100 meters below the flight paths of planes landing at CWB! You can see the high density development along the transit axis here. It is amazing how it just stops, as the ares between the BRT (bus rapid transit) and the fast car lanes are what is zoned for such height.

I took 155 pictures today...here's 4 (for now)

Today was a great day in Curitiba. I'm about to head to dinner, but I'll add some info about the day and add more photos and captions later tonight.
















Walkway into Unilivre.

Below are several photos of the super cool building.

More Photos From Around Curitiba

This is the neighborhood surrounding the hotel. Shot through a gap in the wall on the roof.
















More tube-action!
















Wall of pedestrain walkway under a busy road.

Curitiba Photos

Here is a TUBE! These things are awesome. You pay to enter the tube so when the bus comes you just walk right on, "sheltered from the rains and heats" as the video shown to us said.















This is a biarticulated bus. These red buses are the "Express" routes, but there are other "speedy" buses that go faster and only stop every 3km. These red ones have dedicated lanes, which people use for biking (those that bike) despite the fact that signs tell them it is illegal, but the transportation authority had no legal power to fine them. You can see a tube down the left side of the road.















A shot of Alameda Júlia da Costa, the road our hotel is on. This was taken from our hotel's roof, (which is where the pool is!) about 10 stories up.

Photos

Me showing a little land use love to Curitiba's zoning map at IPPUC (see last link on the right). I would have bought one if they sold them.

















During the walk back to the flat. Looking up towards Centro Histórico, with Igreja Presbiteriana Independente and Igreja do Rosário standing tall at the end of the road.

The Tubes!!

Here is a shot of Curitiba's transportation amazingness. These two lanes in the middle are for buses only. There are several kinds of buses, distinguished by color; different buses travel at different speeds, stop more or less frequently, and go to different places.

You can see a bus in the distance at the bottom of this hill, these buses are the poster-children of Curitiba's public transit. They have these dedicated lanes and arrive very frequently, but don't make a ton of stops, and go fast. The stops are the famous "tubes." You step up and pay your fare, then enter the tube, the bus comes and a ramp lowers from the side of the bus as the doors open and you walk out of the tube and onto the bus. I'll have to get a good photo of some tube-action tomorrow.

The cars travel on the outside lanes. Some of the bigger boulevards (the lifelines of Curitiba's radial density growth) are arranged even cooler: there is the dedicated bus lane in either direction in the middle, then just outside of that is a lane for local car traffic, then outside of that more lanes for faster car traffic. The areas around these superhighways are zoned for the maximum density and taper off as you get away. So a 3D overhead of the city would show all the tall buildings in lines following these roads. No one who lives here is more than 500 meters from a bus line. It is absolutely tunning, and people use it!

Tomorrow we will go to the transportation agency; I'm curious to ask about bike use and planning. Not too many people here ride bikes. I'm the most excited person on the trip about all this transportation/land use business. I was all smiles while we were in that tube!

It is neat that I'm here long enough to need to go to the grocery store. I was psyched to buy some carrots! Also, bananas, apples, yogurt, and some amazing Brazilian granola/cereal bars.

Curitiba

I'm safely in Curitiba! We begin our workshop for the next week today with a lecture from a Brazilian architect so it will be exciting to get into our work!

Curitiba is an amazing city. All of us are already falling in love with it. It is rich and vibrant, but much less overwhelming than Sao Paulo and has a much nicer vibe. Or hotel is amazing. Calvin and I have a mini-flat so to speak, with a very small kitchen (microwave, mini fridge, sink, and hotplate), a living room with couch, a room with our beds, and a balcony.

Spent yesterday on the short flight and then walking around the city. The fillet mignon sandwich was very good; the meat-diet continues. Had some good sides too, fried yucca and farinha. There seems to be a lot to do in our spare time, though I do think we'll be starting a group project that will reduce our ability to explore. There are two mountain ranges nearby which I hope will offer some exciting recreation opportunities.

I'm off to walk around for a bit before our lecture in the afternoon. Pictures will come tonight!