The Bogotá Project: Creating a Context for Mobility and Social and Environmental Sustainability

Contact: Oscar Edmundo Diaz
advisor to the former Mayor of Bogotá
 
Mayor of Bogotá
Stockholm Partnerships case study

Bogotá's 850,000 cars, 55,000 taxis and 75,000 buses of all sizes and types - most of which are both old and in poor repair, hence highly polluting - have clogged the city's streets and emitted toxic levels of emissions. Bogotá has instituted numerous broad-ranging, integrated solutions including automobile use restriction, car free days, TransMilenio bus rapid transit, and a public space program, among others.

Automobile use restriction
At the core of Bogotá's model is a successful program of severe restriction of automobile use, with a long-term goal of total restriction of cars and commercial vehicles during 5 or 6 peak hours every day. Currently, a tag and licensing system keeps 40% of private vehicles off the city streets during peak periods (7:00 to 9:00 AM and 5:00 to 7:00 PM).

Car Free Sundays
Bogotá has a long-established popular tradition of a Car Free Sunday (Ciclovía), each Sunday 120 kilometres of main streets are closed to traffic. Currently about 2 million people ride bikes, rollerblade, jog or walk through the network that connects the whole city. The Ciclovía is the safest place in the city, where everybody move around as equals.

In December 2000 the city held the first Car Free Night. During Christmas the same 120 kilometres are closed to traffic and 3 million people take the streets to see the lighting. From 6:00 PM to midnight children in bicycles, the elderly and everyone moves safely around the city. In its third version no bicycle or camera has been stolen.

Car Free Days
On Thursday February 24th 2000 the mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, Enrique Penalosa, took a monumental step in promoting a reduced dependence on automobiles, by holding the world's largest Car Free Day. From 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. private cars were banned from city streets (over the entire extended urban area). While some 850,000 private cars stayed home in their garages, city residents turned to public transit, bicycles, taxis, regional train, roller-skates and other modes of transit to get to their destinations.. The Stockholm Challenge recognized the challenge undertaken by Mayor Enrique Penalosa to stage the largest car-free day ever - in terms of both area and population. The award also acknowledged the enormous preparation that contributed to the success of the event and the participation and collaboration of the citizens. The jury rated the Bogotá car-free day as the best and most revolutionary initiative of a local government to improve quality of life in a city. Ever since the car-free day celebration, Bogotá has been the centre of world attention, and with this award has established itself as a transportation model for the world's largest cities. In February 2003 Bogotá hosted the First the UN Car Free Day Program with the participation of several Latin American cities.

The Referendum
On October 29, 2000 a referendum was held in Bogotá in which the mayor's proposal of restricting the use of private vehicles during the six hours of major traffic congestion beginning January 1, 2015 was put forward.

The proposal received 51 percent support, 34 percent voted against it and the balance of the votes were blank ballots. No private vehicles, except taxis, will be allowed to circulate during workdays from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. and from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Bogotanos also approved in the referendum the annual celebration of a car-free day on the first Thursday of February, starting in 2001. An ample majority supported this proposal: 63 percent in favour and 26 percent against.

Bus-based transit system, TransMilenio
TransMilenio is the highest capacity bus rapid transit system up to date. The system, introduced in December 2000, is able to carry up to 45,000 passengers per hour per direction, in articulated buses operating on exclusive right of way, with closed stations located on the median of the main streets every 500 meters on average. The system integrates feeder buses in large terminals in the periphery of the city. Currently the system encompasses 41 Km of busways, 57 stations, 4 terminals, 470 articulated buses, 301 feeder buses, and moves 744,000 passengers per weekday.

The system introduced important innovations to mass transit using buses: Express and local services share the busways increasing the capacity of the system and providing a 26 Km/hour commercial speed on average. The system also uses state-of-the-art technologies to control the operations in real time and the passenger access with contact less electronic cards. The system is privately operated through concession contracts with the right incentives for high quality system performance and financial sustainability.

TransMilenio has changed the way the people living in Bogotá perceives its city and relates to it. It became a symbol of a city that is in the process to become an example of sustainable development with social justice. There has been very strong support from the voters to expand the system, which has translated into long term commitments at the local and the national level to provide resources for infrastructure development. Moreover, 9% of the TransMilenio system passengers, are individuals that formerly used private cars to commute, reducing the accidents, air pollution, financial burden and urban sprawl associated with automobile usage.

The infrastructure of the system, which is 100% publicly funded, costs US$5.3 million/Km; one tenth as much as the infrastructure of a heavy rail transit with similar performance. Private concessionaries are in charge of the buses and fare collection systems acquisition, maintenance and operation. There are not public subsidies involved, and fares are just US$0.40 per trip.

Private operators currently employ 3,500+ people, while there are 70 public jobs in the transit authority. The companies operating the system are local associations of the small companies formerly operating the bus routes under permits by the city. Given the wrong incentives that were in place, these companies were not able to provide reliable, safe and fast services, and drivers were forced to work extended hours without benefits.

TransMilenio is based upon but goes way beyond the successful experiences of Curitiba, Porto Alegre and Goiania (Brazil) and Quito (Ecuador). It is a feasible transit solution for cities facing problems and constraints similar to those existing in Bogotá. As a result more than 50 delegations of 13 countries have visited our city to get first-hand experience. The system received the "Stockholm Partnerships" award in 2002, along with other innovative solutions being introduced in Bogotá.

This bus rapid transit system is part of the ambitious mobility strategy for the city of Bogotá, which seeks increased use of non-motorized transportation, including extended bikeways and bike stations, reduction of car usage, and transformation of the formerly chaotic bus operations. Currently the system is being extended to 40 additional kilometres of busways, 60 stations with 410 articulated buses, to be in operation in 2003-2004.

Public Space Program and Bicycle Paths
With the overall goal that there should be at least as much public pedestrian space as road space, the City of Bogotá has developed an extensive pedestrian infrastructure that is unique in the developing world. Physically protected bicycle paths, and large, exclusively pedestrian avenues and greenways crisscross the city in all directions. Another goal of this program is that no child should grow up living farther than 3 blocks from a park.

Towards this goal, a 45-kilometre greenway connecting rich and poor neighbourhoods has been built, as more than 1,200 parks have been built. The small parks in poor neighbourhoods had an enormous participation of residents who proposed and built their community public space by themselves with the guidance and financial support of the City Hall.

Another core element of Bogotá's initiative is the creation of public spaces for the use of pedestrians and cyclists. This project includes hundreds of thousands of square meters of tree-lined sidewalks, and more than 200 kilometres of bicycle paths. A major downtown artery was converted into a dedicated pedestrian-only space. A new 17-kilometer long pedestrian street, lined with trees, lamps and benches, was built through some of the poorest neighbourhoods in Bogotá, including areas where most motor vehicle streets are not yet paved.

The initiative has reduced automobile dependence and increased access to mobility for all citizens of Bogotá, with attendant economic benefits. Although, beyond economic and environmental benefits there are more important aspects such as equity and social justice that these new measures entail.

As former Mayor Penalosa says: "We cannot talk about urban transport until we know what type of a city we want. And to talk about the city we want is to talk about the way we want to live. Do we want to create a city for children and the elderly, and therefore for every other human being, or a city for automobiles? The important questions are not about engineering, but about ways to live. A premise of the new city is that we want society to be as egalitarian as possible."