The Relationship between Timing of Development and Bus Rapid Transit

The city of Curitiba in southern Brazil is considered to be the cradle of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. Curitiba has a population of around 1.9 million people and has a higher development index than Brazil in general. A master plan approved in the middle of the 1960's has guided the development of the city in a Transit Oriented Development (TOD) direction by zoning for high development densities close to the five BRT trunk lines in so-called structural development in Curitiba. The objective was to examine if the BRT system could have been a motivator for property development, and if so, to what extend. This paper presents a perspective to examine property development: Timing of Development, as the relationship between the number of years after construction of BRT lines buildings were constructed, and the distances of these buildings from the BRT lines. Results from the entire BRT system showed that a greater "time lag" of property development following BRT development also meant that the property in question was located further away from a BRT line, suggesting that areas close to the BRT were popular.