Sao Paulo

Despite heavy investments in the transportation infrastructure, drivers of São Paulo still have to face awful traffic jams. Newspaper O Globo informed that in the morning of March 6th 2008, São Paulo faced 165 km (about 103 miles) of jammed streets, the highest figure ever (the former record, of 145 km, had been set just two days ago).

The traffic flow is monitored daily by Companhia de Engenharia de Tráfego - Company of Engineering of Traffic - CET; CET monitors 820 km of the busiest streets in the city via sensors and cameras; the information is available on-line in real time at this map of transit flow in São Paulo.

O Globo interviewed several specialists, who appointed several flaws in the way that São Paulo deals with the problems of transit and transportation. There are fewever vehicles in São Paulo than in Los Angeles (there are 6 million cars in the city of São Paulo, and 9,5 million in the metropolitan area), but cars move faster in LA thanks to a better infrastructure.

One serious problem is the lack of long term planning. For example, most vehicles going from the interior of the State to the Port of Santos must drive across the city, because of lack of alternatives; there is a plan for the construction of a Rodoanel (Ring Drive) around the city, but it started to be built over ten years ago and to date only 32 km (20 mi) were finished.

Other reason mentioned is the rapid growth in the number of vehicles (over the last decade, the fleet grew ten times more than the population) coupled with the proverbial lack of education of Brazilian drivers. Everyday, several accidents happen because of misconduts, and each single accident may be enough to slow down transit for several hours.

Newspaper O Globo published a report today informing that taxis in São Paulo are the most expensive in Brazil. And the long traffic jams, usual in the city, make the situation even worse; this happens because the taxi fares have three components: a starting fare (called “bandeirada”), that passengers pay just for boarding the taxi; a fare per kilometer; and a different fare, per hour, which starts to add automatically to the meter as soon as the speed falls below 20 km/h (12 mi/h).

Below, comparison of taxi prices in a few Brazilian cities (bandeirada + price per km + price per hour at low speeds):

São Paulo:  R$ 3,50 + R$ 2,10 + R$ 28,00

Rio de Janeiro: R$ 4,30 + R$ 1,25 + R$ 15,75

Porto Alegre: R$ 2,76 + R$ 1,37 + R$ 10

Brasília: R$ 3,30 + R$ 1,40 + R$ 18

Recife: R$ 3,00 + R$ R$ 1,40 + R$ 11

Natal: R$ 3,00 + R$ 1,71 + R$ 17,54

On top of that, passengers start to pay a 50% surcharge as soon as the taxi leaves the city of São Paulo and enters a neighbor city, such as Guarulhos and São Bernardo. And, of course, there is a weekend and late night surcharge (called Bandeira 2), of 40%.

The high prices are causing a decrease in the number of passengers. According to the taxi drivers Union, there were about 800,000 passengers a day back in the 1980s, which dropped to about 350,000 nowadays. Many passengers today are employees of corporations (which pay the bills) or attendants of events.