Non Motorized Training Courses in Brazil in November 2007

Posted: 06 Feb 2008

Related to: São Paulo Bicycle Planning, Planning & Advocacy for Cycling & Walking, Brazil
Contributed by: Jonas Hagen

ITDP held two Non-Motorized Transport training workshops together with I-ce (Interface for Cycling Expertise) and GTZ (German Technical Cooperation) and local partners in the two largest cities in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, during the week of 26 November.

Rio de Janeiro has the second-largest network of bicycle facilities in Latin America, with 145 kilometers. However, with the percentage of bicycle trips hovering at 8 percent in many parts of the city, the ridership has enormous potential for growth. In Rio, 75 people from various municipal authorities attended the training course, which concentrated on intermodal integration. Participants went on field visits to a commuter rail and a subway station, and applied the knowledge bike and pedestrian design and traffic calming in the design exercises that followed. The event was superbly co-organized and hosted by Rio’s Municipal planning agency, Instituto Pereira Passos, and high-level authorities, such as Julio Lopes, Transport Secretary for the State of Rio de Janeiro, and Arolde Olivera, Municipal Transport Secretary, showed their support for the training workshop and the implementation of many more kilometers of bike lanes.

São Paulo, South America’s largest city with 11 million in the city limits and 19 million in the metropolitan region, has almost no cycle infrastructure to speak of. With epic traffic jams and an overloaded transit system, the bicycle represents an important alternative for urban trips in Sao Paulo, and an estimated 350,000 daily trips are already made using this mode within city limits.  The workshop there was organized by the CET (Companhia de Engenheria de Tráfego – the local equivalent of the DOT), along with the SVMA (Municipal Environmental Secretariat). In the words of Ricardo Laisa, CET’s manager of road projects, this was a “historical” event, as it was the first time the CET had held a training course for Non Motorized Transport. 94 people from the CET and other public authorities participated in the three day course and showed great enthusiasm. “We are breaking paradigms,” “we have to reduce auto flow and give more space to bicyclists and pedestrians,” and “we have a different vision of the city” were some of the comments made by participants.


Field visit to Indaiatuba in Sao Paulo during workshop. Photo: Jonas Hagen


Group work in the Rio de Janeiro workshop. Photo: Jonas Hagen