Bogotá

A new study from Bogotá models how other cities can ask a deeper set of questions about how to put essential needs within walking, biking or transit distance.

U.S. sustainable transportation advocates take a lot of inspiration from the Amsterdams and Parises of the world. Should they be looking closer to the equator instead?

The post Is Bogotá a Better Model for Transportation Reform than the Green Capitals of Europe? appeared first on Streetsblog USA.

A Maryland activist is poking fun at people who oppose sustainable transportation projects with the help of a human-sized insect costume — but he's far from the first mascot to cheer on the movement for people-oriented places. 

This weekend, San Francisco was treated to a visit by Enrique Peñalosa, the livable streets visionary who spearheaded a transportation revolution as mayor of Bogotá, Colombia by championing ideas like car-free streets, bus rapid transit, and protected bikeways. Peñalosa, who now professes his vision to city leaders worldwide, spoke at Sunday Streets in the Mission and at a SPUR forum.

Three years ago Streetfilms brought you a comprehensive look at Bogotá, Colombia's TransMilenio, the world's most advanced Bus Rapid Transit system. TransMilenio changed the way Bogotá residents think about public transportation, becoming indispensable to the 1.7 million people who use the system daily. If anything, the bus network became a victim of its own success, handling more passengers and crowding than its planners anticipated. Today, ten years after TransMilenio launched, we revisit this groundbreaking transit system and examine how it must improve as it matures.

Since 1998, Bogotá, Colombia has built more than 300 kilometers of protected bikeways. Streetfilms recently had the chance to explore the city's bike network with the man responsible for building it, former mayor Enrique Peñalosa.

Celebrated Colombian urbanist and former mayor of Bogotá Enrique Peñalosa told a standing room audience of more than one hundred people at the San Francisco Public Library last night that San Francisco can be friendly to cars or to people, but not both. Further, he argued that there is no fundamental technical reason why streets have to function only as free-flowing arteries to move cars, but that the state of our cities in America is a political decision that we can overturn and that American's perceptions of what is possible in cities will follow suit.

The debate among policy makers and community stakeholders over the merits of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) versus Light Rail Transit (LRT) is often heated, and usually centers around whether LRT recoups the substantial capital costs of implementation over time versus BRT, and whether BRT has a more substantial carbon impact. Sometimes it can also boil down to a debate over whether buses are sexy enough to get people out of cars and onto transit.