Brazil-Paraná-Curitiba: The creation of a new transport company in the big city.

Curitiba has changed a lot since 1959, when we came here with my father, an army officer transferred to that time the quiet capital of Paraná.

It had then about 350,000 people, imagine!

Today, this huge urban center that integrates (conurbanizes, as the urban planners say) the capital and some parts of the metropolitan area, has approximately 3,500,000 (three million five hundred thousand people).

It's been all these years, the entire region has been largely developed and the truth is that the circulation and public transportation system was delayed compared to other sized cities resembled, in Brazil and in the world.

A very specific historical-political phenomenon has happened here : the bus companies have become so important and powerful, in such a close symbiosis with politicians of the city, that simply was not possible to walk the steps that everyone has walked, in the direction of urban trains, the subways and other solutions universally enshrined.

Except for the vigorous recasting and renovation work by Roberto Requião when the capital's mayor (1986-1988), all other initiatives only reinforced the immense power of the families who traditionally control the bus companies serving the capital and the region.

When there are elections, it all comes to subways and the like and they even invite companies to discuss business and projects. Soon after, however, it all comes back to the same old situation ever.

You now take more than an hour to go less than 15,000 feet, in a "ligeirinho" (supposedly very fast bus) from the civic center to some of the most noble and closer to down-town residential places.

Driving your own car you will not get much better, with the uncontrolled (and incidentally, very fair) growth of the fleet of private cars, especially the ones lastly bought by the long-term debt.

In short, kept only the current players, there will be no change.

Thus, a careful observer and often the protagonist of the history of our city and region, I take the initiative to propose to you, resident citizen, that we add strength to leverage a change process, respectful and peaceful, that bring back to us all the absurd time that we spend today on displacements and that we can and should devote to our families, work, studies and other fulfilling and constructive activities.

So I work to identify a urban trains company, preferably a national one, for in a period of three years to transform this reality by creating a municipal public transportation company to update the system by international standards, recovering from the chaos the urban agglomeration I've referred to and integrating into its equity structure, the municipalities, associations of residents, workers in transport, the company or companies that won the bidding process and perhaps also the companies themselves that controll the costly system operating today, which historical contribution I recognize, despite the distortions noted.

We will need a deep involvement, investment far will be needed, so as to create the objective conditions in so-called public opinion and into the sphere of institutional politics. The planned, methodical, professional effort, will extend continuously over the next three years. Therefore, all of us will become winners.
Some friends ask me what moves me. What are my reasons for undertaking such a journey?

Besides the immense discomfort of facing the absurd situation that we live every day in our travels, yes there are, of course there are, political reasons.

Politics is the civilized way for promoting changes that we dream.

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emiliodelima-AT-hotmail.com