Convegni ATI - Accesso riservato soci CTI

Autore: D. Hidalgo

Collana: AA - 2004 Mexico City - Reducing The Impact of Vehicles on Air and Environment Quality in Cities

Note:
The City of Bogotá, Colombia, is a 6.5 Million inhabitant’s dense urban area, formerly characterized by a chaotic urban transportation system without a clear long term sustainable policy. Eight years ago, the city was overwhelmed by its outstanding transportation problems –fast population increase, very rapid growth in automobile ownership and use and lack of resources, resulting in extensive congestion, air and noise pollution and traffic accidents (Hidalgo, 2002a). The prevailing policy over the 80’s and early 90’s was to allocate the scarce city funds in road expansions and construction of overpasses in few critical intersections. Intent to prioritize road maintenance was started in 1996, but resources were insufficient.

Metro and elevated highways were proposed (JICA, 1997; SITM, 1997) but there was no way to finance them. This could be regarded as fortunate, given that the city was pushed to find innovative low cost alternatives while preserving the urban escape. In 1998, Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, launched a long term mobility strategy based on non-motorized transportation, bus transit improvements and automobile restrictions (Alcaldía Mayor, 1998), which has been continued in succeeding local administrations (Alcaldía Mayor, 2001).

As a result, the city achieved impressive results in travel time reduction and accident abatement, less pollution and energy consumption, as well as reduction in social segregation in the use of public space and transit. The city is regarded as one of the best practices in sustainable development with social justice (Development Planning Unit, 2002; Fulton, 2002; Stockholm Partnerships, 2002; World Bank, 2002; Wright, 2003). The City still has a long way to go, but shares a long term vision, which has political and social consensus.