Metro

Brazil, Curitiba, Metro

Portuguese Transportation News: Curitiba Elevated Metro

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.

(more…)

by grvsmth
Metro, Paris, privacy

It will cost more to ride the Metro incognito

Photo: phverant / Flickr

  • The new “Discovery” version of the Navigo card, which guarantees the confidentiality of its user’s movements, will be available for an additional five euros.
  • Privacy activists are protesting this surcharge.

Olivier LEVARD

Translated by Angus B. GRIEVE-SMITH

“Why pay more to take advantage of a fundamental right?” demands the organization Privacy International. A new version of the Navigo card that will allow public transit passengers in the Ile-de-France region to travel anonymously starting September first will cost its users five euros more, according to a source close to the agency. The reason given is that unlike with the classic Navigo card, the STIF (the public company charged with organizing public transports in the Ile-de-France) will not be required to pay the card’s distribution costs. Dubbed the “Passe découverte” or “Discovery card,” this contactless computerized card will not contain any of the traveler’s personal information, because the validation will not be connected to an identification number. (See sidebar.)

When contacted by LCI.fr, a representative of the privacy defense organization Privacy International was not ready to cheer. “It’s taken us six years to get this. This is not a victory. It’s a natural, normal step to take.” He was particularly stunned by the surcharge connected with the choice of pass. “Citizens are being forced to make a financial choice in order to exercise a fundamental right!” (more…)

by grvsmth