Odebrecht Arena (Fielzão), the new stadium in São Paulo

After a political discussion it has probably been decided where and by who will be made the new stadium in São Paulo for the World Cup of 2014. The São Paulo Football team presented a feasible project of capacity improve of the Morumbi Stadium for 48.000 people, but after a "strange" evaluation made by the FIFA, it was rejected. Some weeks after the Odebrecht, a big construction company, together with the Corinthians Football team, presented a project for the new stadium, in the east São Paulo.

Odebrecht Arena (Fielzão)

The new project was approved in a not clear way, however it would be the better option to improve the city's life and create better structure for the football championship.

Re-urbanization in Itaquera, east São Paulo

Along with the project will came a big re-urbanization, with new tube lines, new road links for areas now disconnected, with improvements of educational infrastructure (universities and technical high-schools) and a big business and cultural center.

Cultural and business center

Even if the stadium will be just for one of the city teams, most of the people approve this new project and look forward to see its completion and to see it fully operating as soon as possible.

(L. Alves)

The public transport integrated plan of São Paulo

The great São Paulo lives now a good time of hopes in the public transports system. Many projects have been done and some of them are already in execution. The yellow line, for example, has now two stations and other five will finish in November of 2010. The green line works now between Vila Madalena and Sacomã's station, and two new stations will finish until the end of 2010. It will link the city with the train line coming from other important cities of the great São Paulo.
The football World Cup of 2014 will probably make the orange line grows in the next four years, linking the neighborhoods Pirituba and Barra Funda, where there is two good possibilities of stadium.
At the same moment, the gold line, the first monorail line in the city, will start soon linking the airport, some important business areas and another possibility of World Cup's stadium, the Morumbi.

The public transport integrated plan (PITU)

All these projects are part of an expansion program made by the government of São Paulo State with the metropolitan train/tube transportation. It's a good beginning but is clear that the city needs to improve more soon.
Eight hundred new cars make the license and start driving around the city every day. It made the city's fleet of cars become bigger than 6 million cars (by DETRAN-SP, the department of traffic).
São Paulo has the biggest fleet of buses in the world, with around twenty thousands. But in terms of quality the city is not that good. It happen because the buses have to share the roads with the cars, apart in the feel corridors working.
These evidences show how much the city needs urgent a solution of public transports, with new tube and monorail's lines, bus corridors and bike lines, having more link between then as well.

(L. Alves)

New Roosevelt Square and Cultura Artística Theatre: coming soon

The centre of São Paulo during the last 30-40 years has been abandoned, without maintenance left to the destruction of the weather. Luckily things are changing and, beyond the Luz Station and Centre Market projects, there is a new one that will rebuild the cultural region of theatres on Roosevelt Square.
This revitalization will improve even more the region because of the tube station Higienópolis on the new Yellow Line, that is planned to be finished in 2011.

Area of Roosevelt Square and Cultura Artística Theatre

Roosevelt square will be re-planned demolishing some of the concrete slabs, making it more green with 450 new trees, 4000m² of grass, playground, outdoor fitness equipments and bike parking. It will cost around €17 million with a considerable amount sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank, and the rest financed by the city government.

Roosevelt Square

The "Cultura Artística" Theatre, will be also rebuilt. This was a traditional performance center that burned on 17th of August, 2008.

Fire in 2008

The project provides a feature in transparent polycarbonate and steel structure that protects and makes visible the Di Cavalcanti's artistic panel, survival of the fire.

The new project of the Theatre

The new theatre will fit a bigger audience and will offer a better quality service. It will cost around €33 million and its planned to finish in 2012.

Theatre internal view

All this innovation process make us hope that the centre of São Paulo will become more pleasant, with better quality of life for the citizens and that it will become again a meeting point for cultural and touristic venues.

(L. Alves)

Bus corridors: essential for big cities

Public transports are absolutely necessary for big cities. The most commented transportation, the subway, is a symbol of how to make the citizens life easier without needing too much space. It is used by millions of passengers every day and never makes traffic jam.
But we can't forget that build this kind of transportation it's really expensive and in many situations, it's more convenient to use the bus. Curitiba used this idea in the 70' and it still work perfectly nowadays. Another 78 cities around the world copied Curitiba's system and they all worked well.
The great São Paulo is a huge urban center,the 4th center more populated in the world, with around 20 million people. However the network of trains and subway lines is not enough (only the 12th in extension); São Paulo tries to face the demand of public transport with its bus fleet of around 15 thousand units.
But all this buses don't work like they should because of wrong route and bad logistic. One of the problem is that there are not enough bus corridors and, in general, they are badly planed, like the ones of M'Boi Mirim, Santo Amaro and Rebouças.
This last one, for example, was built wrong since the beginning. The government of 2004 created a tunnel just for cars to cross Avenue Faria Lima, but left the buses to cross it aboveground. Now the buses stay stuck in long queues because they have a reduced space for bus-stops and the platform is right before the long traffic lights. The government, to solve this problem, has recently started to rebuild the platforms in a way that increases twice their capacity.

Faria Lima bus stop, before the changes

Faria Lima bus stop, after the changes

It was possible because of the type of bus used in the city, with doors on both sides.

From: http://www.onibusbr.com/2007_08_01_archive.html

There are some bus corridors working well, like the one of Ibirapuera Avenue. But unfortunately the majority is not well done, needing lots of repairs.
Hopefully the public administration will think more about buses like an important transportation (maybe the most important), invest more and plan it better, and maybe in the future, the people could trust in bus like their ally on busy working days.

(L. Alves)

The Brazilian city Curitiba awarded the Globe Sustainable City Award 2010

On April 7, 2010, in Stockholm, the city of Curitiba, Brazil, received the Sustainable City Award given by the Sweden institution Globe Award. The city is known around the world because of the plan of transportation based in bus service, working like subways. This plan was implanted in the 70's and until now it works well with the city, that grew two or three times in size and population

A new innovative project puts again the city in a top position worldwise. This is the project "Biocidade" (Biocity), that imposes an ecologic and social approval to all decisions taken in the city. From now, the city with 1,85 million people, will have a bigger social and sustainable direction.
At the Globe Award competition, beyond the Brazillian city, there where other cities like: Sidney, Malmö, Múrcia, Songpa and Stargard Szczecinski.
With projects like this, and other social projects, this country has some examples to be followed by all the cities. And hopeful in the future, Brazil could be a country with better quality of life.

(L. Alves)

Disaster in Brazil

The new year started with a big catastrophe on the cities close to the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. An important cultural city, Sao Luis do Paraitinga, was flooded with 10 meters of water after a big rain.
This city is famous in Brazil and around the world because of the traditional carnival, something difficult to find nowadays. Also, it´s an historical city full of houses of the 19th century, that were in process of being listed for the historical heritage of Brazil, by IPHAN.
The video show a bit how is the city after the catastrophe.

Professionals from IPT, Institute of Technological Research of Sao Paulo State, went to the city and evaluated a loss of about 40 million Euros. Around 300 buildings needs to be refurbished or rebuilt.
To help the reconstruction, Sao Paulo's government opened a tax exempted donation account, with low interest rates. But this is not enough. The city needs the help of the regional and nation governments and a bigger and careful effort, in the reconstruction of the city. Maintaining the historical characteristic of this city, which is a so important heritage for this young country.

(L. Alves)

Floods in Sao Paulo: some causes

The summer arrived in Brazil before it was expected. During the last weeks, Sao Paulo City, per example, had storms and rains bigger than normal happen during rainy summers. Some projects have been made (cleaning the big river's affluents and making urbanization on the suburbs near the lakes) but it's not enough. The dredging on Tietê's river is late and the big pools for rains were not built like was on the projects. Because of that, many neighborhood are flooded during weeks.


How can these things happen nowadays in the richest city of South America? These are just basic problems surpassed per many cities around the world, that Sao Paulo didn't do yet because of a sequence of problems and mistakes.
- First was the rivers crossing the city, Pinheiros and Tietê. They were channeling more than one century ago in a bad way, losing their lowland areas to build roads and residential zone. It was a natural huge pool that could take an important part of the rain, redistributing the water in the time-line;
- Second big problem was all the governments passed that were not caring of the suburbs and low social areas. Because of these, many residential areas have problems without sewer and with the little canals (Pinheiros and Tietê affluents) polluted. It makes the flood even worse;
- The third problem is soil sealing around the city. The big population density with the pavement basically asphalt, decreased a lot the infiltration potential of the city's ground;
- Other relevant problem is the pollution of the rivers. The Billings reservoir was projected to receive the water from Pinheiros river and send down the mountains to Santos, generating energy. With the pollution it is not possible anymore;
- In the end is important the governments create a better plan of drainage, urbanism and cleaning river, more integrated and available.
The public administration is making thing to try to fix this problem, but anyway the big pools for rain must be made, the dredging shouldn't stop never leaving always the projected ground level and the governments should have more social projects, different that is happening in the last three decades.
Another hope comes from the Hydraulics Laboratory of the University of Sao Paulo. A research led by José Rodolfo is trying to create a different kind of asphalt, more porous. This new material, was supposed to drain the water like the sand. If this study conclude happily, it will give an important help to solve this problems happened in the city.
Let's wait now all the projects to be made seriously for the governments, and with the population helping, we manage to see in a soon future a city with better conditions for everybody, like it need to be done.

(L. Alves)