By Micheline Maynard
We recently showed you a day in the life of Montreal’s transit system. Here, with some catchy music, is a day in the life of the transit system in Sao Paulo.
Now, you might wonder if anything ever moves in Sao Paulo, which has been nicknamed “the city of 18 million traffic jams,” referring to its population.
Sao Paulo actually has the world’s most extensive, and complex, bus system. It operates 26,391 buses, 1,908 lines, 34 transfer stations, and 146.5 kilometers of dedicated bus lanes. One in every five residents takes a bus every day to work, school or other places. Overall, 10.5 million people ride a bus daily in the metropolitan area — equivalent to moving the population of Belgium.
In the bus transit world, Sao Paulo is the equivalent of Montreal in the bike sharing world. City officials from everywhere descend on Sao Paulo to see how the city manages all those people. So sit back, and marvel at the masses of people moving through Sao Paulo mass transit.