Failure to boost public transport leaves São Paulo stuck in traffic

BRAZIL Letter:There is a lack of political will to solve São Paulo's ever-worsening traffic problem, writes Tom Hennigan.

BECAUSE MY car's licence plates end in zero, I am not allowed drive it around the expanded central zone of São Paulo during Friday morning and evening rush hours.

It's not that I've been singled out - every car owner faces such a restriction. On Mondays, it is those whose plates end in one and two; on Tuesdays, three and four; and so on right up to my Fiat Uno and more than one million others with plates ending in nine and zero, who on Fridays are banished from the streets between 7am and 10am and again between 5pm and 8pm.

There are many things that the city government could do better, but this rotating restriction - known as the rodízio - is rigidly enforced.

Shortly after I bought my car, I nosed out on to the streets about 10 minutes before my Friday morning rodízio had ended. I had an interview to get to and figured that by the time I hit one of the main avenues - where you tend to see the rodízio monitors - it would be after 10am and I would be in the clear.

My mistake. About a month later I received a letter inviting me to contest the fact that I had been spotted four blocks from my home - right in the heart of the restricted zone - five minutes before the end of my rodízio.

Caught red-handed, I paid the €35 fine and learnt the expensive way what paulistanos all know - you can't cheat the rodízio.

The restriction, in force since 1997, is an attempt to alleviate São Paulo's chronic traffic congestion. With almost 11 million inhabitants, the city has more than six million registered cars that clog up the freeways, avenues and streets of its endless urban sprawl. On some days a journey that should take less than half an hour can take two or three. On really bad days it can be a lot worse.

With the local economy booming, more cars are flooding on to São Paulo's roads every week and, despite the rodízio, commuting times are lengthening. The average speed for commuters when the measure was introduced was 20 miles an hour. Today it is down to 15.

The city lacks an adequate metro system to provide a viable alternative for millions of commuters. This is the consequence of a bad bet made in the 1930s when authorities laid out much of the current transport network, going for freeways and large avenues rather than drilling tunnels for trains. When first delivered, this option seemed to be the height of modernity. But since then the city has experienced explosive population growth - almost 20 million people now live in the greater metropolitan area - and the futuristic freeway network is swamped.

Now the city is trying to catch up and expand metro capacity, but transport experts say political lethargy means such efforts will never keep up with the problem.

The traffic problem is estimated to cost São Paulo more than €17 billion a year in lost hours. Recently a second rodízio was introduced for lorries, which were previously exempt. Getting around has been somewhat easier this July, but no one is sure whether this is due to the latest restrictions or because school is out and traffic is typically lighter during the holidays.

Brazil's car industry is the fourth biggest in the world and a major source of pride for president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former carworkers' union boss. In this he recalls the political class of the 1950s, when Brazil started to industrialise.

The car sector was designated the vanguard industry and foreign car manufacturers were invited in to set up shop. They formed a powerful lobby that helped steer state investment into roads and away from expanding public transport.

Now São Paulo - whose growth was in large part fuelled by the presence of the car sector - is living with the consequences. Transport experts say that, so long as demand exceeds capacity, the solution will have to be to restrict demand, trying something similar to London's congestion charge.

But there is a lack of political will to penalise car owners beyond the rodízio, even though they probably only make up a third of the city's commuters on any given day, while causing most of the traffic chaos.

A "privileged minority", in the words of one expert, their concerns come before their typically poorer peers, who crowd on to the few trains and metros that are available or stand in crowded buses stuck in traffic jams caused mainly by single-occupant cars.

And so, until the government starts penalising private transport and promoting its poorer public cousin, the barely credible is set to happen and São Paulo's commute will get even worse.