The 1995-98 administration of the State Secretariat for Metropolitan Transports began with the issuing of the Integrated Urban Transport Program - Pitu - which is an investment plan with targets for the next ten years.

It comprises projects that are already being carried out. Unfinished works were resumed and, at completion, handed over to operation. The remaining parts are under construction and a third group of works will be started in the near future.

That phase was overcome and the new administration period has started looking at the future and envisioning a broader scenario - the year 2020, since we all know that building the future of transports requires actions in the present.

The Pitu 2020 is an open plan and it represents today a thorough exercise in the process of planning the future. It contains presuppositions and some degree of information known at a certain period of time obtained through certain means. But the plan may - and surely will - be improved through new information, unpredictable events or by new dreams.

Yes, dreams. After all the Pitu 2020 had an innovative beginning: instead of starting with sensible but impersonal prognoses, it began with the statement of a desire, a concerned meditation on how we would like to be living in the year 2020, on which will be the "face" of our city in the future.

The dream was shared by many decision-maker agents - mayors, technicians of operating firms, city planners and scholars specialized on public transport - who desired to think carefully about the paths our city might take. The unanimous conclusion was that we all wanted a competitive, healthy, harmonious and responsible city, totally concerned with its citizens. The specific strategies for the metropolitan transports were launched having that platform in mind.

The value of a plan such as the Pitu 2020 is to become a reference for the future that offers a broad and comprehensive range of possibilities that, instead of restraining the options, stimulates its continuous adaptation and expansion.

Cláudio de Senna Frederico
State Secretary for Metropolitan Transport
1997