This is the last of my posts on Brasilia, Brazil. My first was an overview of mindbogglingly fascinating planned city and would be worth reading before or in conjunction with today’s post. The others are listed in yesterday’s post.

Many people I spoke to stated that Brasilia was built for the car not the pedestrian. This is not strictly true. The designer’s intention was that people and cars would be separated giving people safe spaces to walk in and cars few restrictions eg few pedestrian crossings. The idea is that between the city’s sectors, people would drive (or be driven). Once in a sector, they would walk along distinct walking routes.

The Realties are very different. Brasilia has very high car ownership and usage. In a country with low car ownership and usage comparatively. The lessons from this? Our cities need to reflect that humans need and want to walk and allow them direct safe routes. Probably too late for Brasilia but not too late for other places. Lessons below.

Make it easy for people to walk Between Sectors 

Walking between sectors is almost impossible. I think this first video fascinatingly illustrates this. The Hotel Diplomat and the Econohotel are about 600 metres apart. One is located in the Northern Hotel Sector and one in the Southern Hotel Sector. To safely and legally walk between them requires a 2.3 kilometre walk.

Give People logical and short Walking Routes
The Walking routes that have been laid out for people in Brasilia are not the shortest. This video  shows an example of this outside a shopping mall. To cross the road to the mall legally means a diversion of at least 400 metres in total.

This aerial shot of Brasilia from the Blog Discovering Urbanism shows the massive network of unofficial paths that criss cross the open space so people can get to places faster.

Street Life Helps make a City

It was uncanny at times to walk around this city and not see another pedestrian. There are very few cities in the world that have no one in the downtown walking. These three shots show some interesting contrasts. The first shot is of the street. The second is of an aerial walkway connecting two shopping areas over the Bus station. The third is the shopping centre interior. Where are the people? The shopping centre can be accessed by car, subway and bus but not by foot. I tried it and its not easy.

Show People Where to Walk

I have already mentioned in a previous blog that many of the the walking routes are not clearly identified. They need directional signposting, maps and other clues that you are heading in the right direction.

Create Safe Pedestrian Crossings to Protect Pedestrians

The pedestrian accident rate in Brasilia is five times higher than the US average. One of the reasons is the way Pedestrians have to negotiate roads. There are four types of Pedestrian crossings in Brasilia:

1. Underground passages: long, dark, deserted- as a result rarely used day or night
2. Underground passages linked to subway stations- newly updated, still long, better lit and more used but still often empty of people
3. A few legal crossings mostly accompanied by a very unpleasant audible walk signal as demonstrated in the first  video below.
4. Illegal crossings. This second video below illustrates the enormity of the task in downtown Brasilia. Many Brasilianos take their lives into their hands and bolt across six lanes of fast moving traffic to get to somewhere easily.  I can see why the death rate is so high

This is my fourth article on my recent experiences on Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. When I told people that I was going to visit there, I got one of three reactions:

1. Why?
2. Where?
3. What for?

I was regaled with tales of people going mad with boredom in the sterile cityscape and the empty streets. Even Brazilians said to me that it would not take long to see the sights! Brasilia gets such a bad rap – from anyone who has never been there. The locals I spoke to, however, liked their city.  Many who were born there, bristle at the negative be stereotypes perpetuated by other Brazilians and visitors. Overall, as mentioned last week, I have appraised it as a good city.

Arrival

I arrived at the interstate bus station which is an impressive modern building that looks like it is in the middle of nowhere. As an example of how tricky it is to navigate Brasilia,  nowhere in any literature about the bus station does it say that it’s right next to Shopping Metro station (home of park shopping mall) I took a cab from the bus station to my hotel which cost 36 Brazilian Real on the meter (about $21) . Next time I would take the metro for 3 Real ($1.77 ) and get a 5 Real ($3) cab from the galleria station to my hotel.

How I filled my time

• I took a two hour City Bus tour which was a brilliant introduction to Brasilia. Again here is where being a tourist is difficult, None of the websites that had tour information had correct times. The tour started at the TV Tower and took in all the key parts of the Monumental axis ofthe Pilot Plan . On my tower were 9 people : 2 from Brasilia,  6 from other parts of Brazil and me. Reading through their  registration list for the week, I saw no other English speaking tourist! The tour had a taped commentary – on my trip it was in English and Portuguese.
• I then spent more hours gazing at the monumental buildings of Brasilia
• the museums did not take long to go through but had some great stuff-labelled mostly in Portuguese of course
• I went up the TV tower the highest building in the city twice- day and night
• I walked around the commercial centre of the city people watching, architecture gazing and window shopping
• I shopped at one of the main shopping malls
• I checked out the amazing Brasilia bar scene- its very fun with all these little bars scattered everywhere
• I ran through, walked through and hung out in the City Park including a sunset
• I  enjoyed the city markets

New Towns in Brasilia

• Although I felt a little like a burglar, I wandered around the residential zones of the city. I kept thinking someone would challenge me exploring the super blocks
• I took the metro out to the new settlements
• Next time, I would spend time on the Lake and check out the  Zoo and Botanic Gardens

The city does not get many international tourists from what I saw:

1. Few international flights land there- most of them go to the coastal cities of Sao Paolo or Rio
2. Most of the key websites for services in Brasilia were only in Portuguese eg
• Brasilia Metro  http://www.metro.df.gov.br/
• Brasilia Buses  http://www.tcb.df.gov.br/
• Main Tourist website  http://www.brasiliatur.df.gov.br/
• City information: http://www.gdf.df.gov.br/045/04501001.asp
• Cultural activities http://www.sc.df.gov.br/
3. Any English information was largely out of date or inaccurate or unclear eg there’s a new bus to the airport which stops in the southern hotel sector where I was staying. But where? no one could tell me where the bus stop was for it-a detail that I’d important if you need to catch a bus to the airport. As it happened the bus stopped for me in the street -I was the only one on it
4.  most of the posts about Brasilia from other tourists were negative warning people to stay away!

The Brazilian tourist authority’s need to set up a comprehensive accurate website promoting their city with positive testimonials.

Upcoming: blog post on Brasilia’s’ Buildings.

To misquote Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: “Brazil is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long walk down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to Brazil“. As the fifth largest country in the world, total area is 8,514,877 km2 (3,287,597 sq mi )

 For US people that’s almost 13 times the size of Texas. Its about 35 times the size of the UK. For Europeans its five tomes larger than France

Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Holland combined. It is 10% bigger than Australia. 

Population: 190 million.

It became the 50^th country I have visited and my first in South America. It also popped into my five favourite countries list! I loved Brazil.

I found Brazilian people to be warm and fun. The stereotypes I had of Brazilians actually proved to be true. They are loud. They are very much into touching each other when they talk. And they seem to live music and dance. I came across a group of teen boys in the Park publicly comparing their salsa moves -keen to impress women. In a shopping mall, a group of people,spontaneously started dancing to a song that came over the PA system. In car park, a group of guys were admiring each others car – sound systems and dancing away as they compared woofers and bass.

People inside and outside of Brazil waned me about the crime. Having been to El Salvador, India and Baltimore, I was not too phased. Brazil has a high crime rate- much higher then I am used to in Australia, although in slightly higher than that of much of the USA.

I handled Brazil in the same way as other places:

1. No jewellery

2. clothes similar to that worn by locals

3. looking like I knew where I was going (not an easy task in Brasilia see blog post)

It must have worked because people kept asking me for directions! So much for trying to fit in an be inconspicuous!

 I also made sure I only used ATMs inside the airport and at shopping malls. NB the ones at the airports charged the most expensive ATM fees I have ever paid anywhere in the world! I had a lot of difficulty getting cash out of Brazilian atms. Some ATMs were not equipped for international cards despite displaying the Visa and or MasterCard logos. Some would not accept a card with a chip. Banco d Brasil was consistently the one that I could get cash from.

Prices in Brazil were much higher than I expected. In a country where a lot of the population earns a dollar a day and the average middle class half that earned by their counterparts in the USA, I found prices surprising. Public transit costs in Brazil were only just a little less than Australia or USA, taxis abut the same pricing. Clothes were cheaper.  Accommodation in the cities was very close to international prices (although what you go for the money seemed greater). Meals were about half what I would pay in Australia in urban restaurants and dead cheap in rural areas (all you can eat for $5?)

The food was amazing- lots of fresh fruit, vegetables. They are very high meat consumers and some friends commented they struggled to be vegetarian.

I had been long been fascinated by the architecture, the structure, the layout and its impact on the people who call Brasilia home. Some people say its a success and others warn of its  failures.

Brasilia is the 160th city over 100 000  people I have visited. And I have rated every city and update the ratings regularly!!! (ESFJ personality). These ratings are based on my perceptions and experiences.

Overall Rating out of 100

I gave Brasília an overall score of 81.4 per cent. This gives it  74th place out of the 160th cities I have visited. Bizarrely , Canberra, the planned capital city of Australia also ranks 74th in the same list with the same score of 81.4 per cent.  I promise no manipulation. 

At President’s Palace

Aesthetics – 7th place
Aesthetically Brasilia is stunning with the nice setting, beautiful lake and the amazing Oscar Niemeyer architecture set amongst greened landscapes. I found much of the “Memorial spaces” too grand and daunting.  They seem to reduce the significance of humanity within them.

Culturally - 92nd place
For a capital Brasilia needs more. It is beaten in this area by 91 of the cities I have been to. More festivals, more museums, more displays and more theatre are needed. While I was there, the grassed area on Monumental Axis was being used by a sporting event. This should happen more often.

Safety-153rd out of 160
The crime rate of Brasília is very high but I didn’t feel unsafe- was I lucky or careful?  I was more cautious than I would be in other cities. Walking at night, in the evening was weird as the streets around the hotel zones were largely empty of people. There were plenty of people in the nearby shopping mall, however,

Public Transportation – 117th

While the road network is amazing, for a city of 2.5 million, transport in Brasília is woefully inadequate. The buses are very extensive and seem frequent in the day. However,  information about transport is impossible too access, the system isn’t cheap, ticketing is not yet integrated and infrastructure underdeveloped. Things will improve if/when the metro is extended and the light rail opens in 2014. Canberra’s Public Transit system is actually worse with less of a bus network and no metro/light rail. Biking is better in Canberra with good cycle paths.

Atmosphere and Vibe – 12th
There is a vibe about Brasília that beats across the city. Going thru city parks, shopping and market crowds and  in the bars. I found more pride in Brasilia than I do in Canberra, Australia.

Living there – 44th
All the people I met who lived in  Brasília liked it,..in fact many loved living there. They were concerns at the soaring house prices which puts much of the city out of the reach of middle class Brazilians and no hope for the poor. Housing is a serious social problem which needs to be fixed.

All in all, Brasília is a Good city. But to my mind, a planned city in a great country looking toward a great future,  needs to be a great city.