Ephemerica

I first heard about Bogota, Colombia’s revolutionary transportation system from . When faced with growing traffic congestion, the city switched entire roads to bike and pedestrian only, eliminated parking downtown and developed a Rapid Bus Transit system. Today on KUOW, I heard an interview with Dr. Enrique Penalosa, the former Mayor of Bogota, who is in town to talk about transportation issues. You can listen . He makes some really interesting points. I especially like the idea that bicycles make the city more beautiful. He also calls our bike lanes a joke—to be effective bicycles need separate, direct roads of their own. He claims that the separate bike ways are a symbol of democracy. Separate bike ways say the poor cyclist is as important as the rich car owner. The Seattle Times also has an . It seems unlikely that even a very liberal city in the US would demote the car in importance, but just having Dr. Penalosa here is a step in the right direction, even if the visit was sponsored by the conservative Christian think tank, .

Bogota isn’t on the obvious route through Colombia to Ecuador, but since the Colombia/Ecuador border isn’t stable right now, maybe we can bike to Bogota and fly from there to Quito.

Posted by cindy on September 28th, 2006 | Filed under: General