In February 2007, someone posted Severn Suzuki’s 6:40 minute speech on You-Tube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g8cmWZOX8Q ). She gave this speech to the United Nation Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992 and was only 12 years old at the time. Since it’s been posted, her video has been seen by 1,624,068 people and counting. I truly urge you to see it too. My first reaction to Suzuki’s speech was tearful frustration soon followed by burning curiosity. Where was I at 12? Rummaging through my memory, I figured out that this was the year I was shipped off to Spain to live with my grandparents and learn “proper” Spanish! That year, my grandfather was writing a book about Christopher Columbus’s discovery of Puerto Rico on his second voyage. That particular voyage’s log has been lost and no one really knows where Columbus first landed. Some say Mayagüez. Others say Añasco. My grandfather went to the Museo Naval in Madrid to read old papers and do original research for his book “Debated Headlands” and came to the conclusion he landed in Aguada.
Meanwhile, at 12, I was put in “a Convent”, stumbling through lispy lightening-speed Spanish, learning Latin and trying to avoid being abused by the neurotic Nuns running the school. The very first day, I got in enormous trouble at lunch when I was served a banana for dessert. Being from Isla Verde, Puerto Rico I picked up the banana and began unpeeling it “like normal”. Before I got to the second strip, however, a nun had slapped me hard across the face. I was so shocked; I dropped my banana back on my plate. Then, I was made to pick up my knife and fork, cut away the peel like a surgeon, chop the fruit into chunks and eat one piece at a time using the upside down fork technique. “Like a civilized person, not a savage”, the nun had hissed. That year, I really missed my parents in Puerto Rico and, it turns out, I also missed the TUSCA project.
TUSCA stood for “Transportation and Urban Settlement Combined Action”. It was a visionary project proposed by Architect Etienne Dusart and endorsed by Governor Luis A. Ferré (but Luis Muñoz Marin liked it too) at the Planning Board from 1970-71 to build a rapid transit system around and within the entire island of Puerto Rico. The budget (then) was $680 million, it should have been finished by 1980 and should have been self-supporting (including the amortization of capital costs) before 1990. The plan called for three phases to deal with the congestion already choking San Juan in the 70s including: a comprehensive island widemass transportation system with trains, buses, ferries and moving sidewalks, new planned communities and another airport. As Lynn Feigenbaum wrote in her article “In the Shape of Things to Come” (SJSTAR June 6, 1971) “Its supporters…view TUSCA not as a cost, but as a necessity, on as island where urban sprawl and population density have become clichés and where highways and urbanizations gobble up more and more valuable land.”
In 1970, there were only 15 cars per every 100 people. Today there are 62. Imagine the childhood I would have had riding the train (instead of being driven by car) from San Juan to Ponce in 64 minutes, Ponce to Mayaguez in 26 and back from Mayaguez to San Juan in 55? Even a trip from Hato Rey to Luquillo would only have taken 25 minutes! So what happened? Politicians dropped the ball. After the change in Administration from PNP to PDP, there was no one in government to passionately lead the project through. Instead, ARPE and the Planning Board were split apart and TUSCA was dropped in favor of building the 3.4 kilometers of streets and highways per km² we enjoy today. To add insult to injury, Singapore saw OUR TUSCA project at a presentation by Tony Nelessen, David Fairchild and Etienne Dusart and THEY went ahead and did it! In 1974, Singapore established their own Urban Redevelopment Authority, organized their own Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and built 109.4 kilometers of track with 64 stations. Today, in Puerto Rico, we have the Tren Urbano with 17.2 kilometers of track and 16 stations. And we compare ourselves to them? Ay bendito, Puerto Rico. TUSCA was planned to pay for itself in 35 years. That would be now.
About nine months ago, I found myself listening to Pedro Pierluisi speak about running for Politics with Luis Fortuño and I asked him about the PNP’s stance on the environment. I was thinking about Thomas Friedman’s article in the NYTimes (April 15, 2007) called “The Power of Green” where he believes “living, working, designing, manufacturing and projecting America [also Puerto Rico] in a GREEN way can be the basis of a new unifying political movement in the 21stcentury. Because”, he writes, “a new GREEN ideology, properly defined, has the power to mobilize liberals and conservatives, evangelicals and atheists, big business and environmentalists that can both pull us through and propel us forward.” Maybe it could also unite Puerto Ricans. Isn’t it terribly ironic that PR Tourism continually promotes Puerto Rico as a Tropical Paradise as we locals stew in ever worsening traffic and trash? Along Friedman’s lines, I don’t think Puerto Rico needs any more Blue or Red Leaders. I think it needs Environmental GREEN Leaders who will support projects like TUSCA until every 12 year old child in Puerto Rico (and their children’s children) can ride the train to Ponce and wherever else they want to go around the island.
In May 2008, I had the immense privilege of meeting Tony and Françoise Nelessen (from Princeton) and David and Clea Fairchild (from Monterrey) at Etienne Dusart’s (from Belgium) house in Nicaragua at their 40th Harvard Reunion of an Urban Planning Program from which all three gentlemen graduated and later worked together on TUSCA. They were also joined by more classmates and spouses including Brian and Myra Canin (from South Africa and now Orlando), Michael and Armgart Von Heppe (from Hamburg), Alan and Ana Peskine (from Paris), Bernie and Vivienne Benin (from New Hampshire), Eric Doepke (from Cincinnati) and Tom Mierzwa (from U of Maryland) where they all relaxed for a week in NICA hospitality and caught up with each others projects and lives.
I was thrilled to be in the middle of it all, flitting around like a butterfly: Looking, Listening, Learning and Experiencing the way a room full of architect colleagues move and feel about and within a wide variety of spaces after 40 years of separate interpretation and practice. Our mutual host, Etienne (with much support from Irene Arevalo) planned a “Complete Sensory Overload” with tours by horse drawn carriage around Granada, visits into local homes, hikes up volcanoes and through rainforests, fresh water swims in a lake in which the entire island of PR fits, salt water swims in the Pacific, private swims in his infinity pool with waterfalls, a horse show, a hammock maker, a saint carver, a colorful guide named Giaconda, a party with shimmering dancing girls, grilled food and a bar ever flowing with iced cold Toña beer, Freixinet cava, Flor de Caña Cuba Libres and Marques de Caceres Red. What a wild week of tropical living woven into warm memories. Etienne’s motto is “Vive la Vida!” I’d add,”Con Verde Luz”.
