Getting to know the elevated metro

Mayor Cassio Taniguchi intends to implement, in the next five years, an elevated metro in Curitiba.  In the first stage, the project will be installed on BR Route 116; this will be thirteen kilometers of one of the most modern transportation systems in the country.  Envisioned as an elevated metro, one of the systems under study for Curitiba uses concrete beams as a guideway for high-capacity trains.  BR 116 will be transformed into a unique space in the city, a beautiful boulevard with landscaping and a new layout that will herald a new era in Curitiba.

With this system hitherto unseen in Brazil, Curitiba’s new high-capacity transportation system will handle 183 thousand passengers per day.  The revenues will be dedicated to the Union.  The financing will be done by the JBIC (Japan Bank for International Cooperation), an organization dedicated to international projects that will improve the environment.

Systems under study

One of the systems under study is the monorail.  These are four-car trains that can transport 415 passengers at a maximum speed of 65 kilometers per hour.  The system is similar to ones used in Tama, in the Tokyo Metropolitan Region, and in Osaka, both visited by the Mayor in his Japan trip.

The other system under study is the Automatic Guide Transport, also an elevated electric-powered vehicle, but with a lower capacity, like systems that the Mayor visited in Tokyo (Yurikamome), Osaka (New Tram) and Kobe (Portline).

When the 27 kilometers of the project (of which seven kilometers will be branch lines), the system will have the capacity to handle a demand of 183 passengers per day.  The implementation of the project on BR 116 will allow us to link the elevated metro to ten municipalities in the Curitiba Metropolitan Region.

At the conclusion of the two phases of the project, the metro will have nineteen stations.  In the first phase the CIC-Sul, Churchill, Ipiranga, Brasília, Santa Bernardete, Vila Fanny, Autolândia, Paiol and Centro stations will be constructed.  In the second phase ten more stations will be built: PUC, Politécnico, Botânico, Cristo Rei, Tarumã, Vila Olímpica, Base Aérea, Solar, Bairro Alto and Atuba.

Stages

The first phase will be constructed in a 13-kilometer stretch of BR 116, with nine stations, from the Curitiba Industrial Park in the southern outskirts to the center of the city.  In this first phase, the elevated metro will connect the capital with three municipalities in the Metropolitan Region: São José dos Pinhais, Araucária and Fazenda Rio Grande.

In the secton phase of construction seven more municipalities will be connected by the metro: Mandirituba, Almirante Tamandaré, Pinhais, Piraquara, Quatro Barras e Campina Grande do Sul

The project, presented in Japan by Mayor Cassio Taniguchi, was well received by the financial institutions, and by Japanese politicians, especially because it has a strong environmental component, combining transportation, quality of life and land use with the revitalization of a blighted urban corridor.

The Environmental Metro

“The project that we intend to construct in Curitiba is much more than just a transportation system.  It has a strong environmental component, offering a solution to the problem posed by the BR 116 corridor that splits our city down the middle.  The realization of the Mercosul Corridor, which will connect São Paulo to Porto Alegre by way of Curitiba and is currently being led by the DNER, will free up this highway so that we can integrate Curitiba through the installation of a modern transportation system,” explained Cassio.

The Mayor added that “thinking about the future of Curitiba means once more integrating it with its metropolitan region.  To do this, it is necessary to construct a transportation system that allows for future expansion to handle increasing demand from the population.”

Original: Conheça o metrô elevado, May 5, 2001