I first read about this mayor and this city last year, but now that
another article has reappeared, here's the thought for the day...
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The Mayor Who Wowed the World Urban Forum
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/06/23/Mayor/
Bogota's Enrique Peñalosa' happy 'war on cars.'
Published: June 23, 2006
If you think the problems facing the world's exploding cities are
insurmountable then you need to spend a few hours on a bike alongside
the former mayor of Bogota. That's how I spent Thursday afternoon, and
it left me with new hope for the global south, not to mention the
bloated 'burbs of Greater Vancouver.
Enrique Peñalosa presided over the transition of a city that the
world--and many residents--had given up on. Bogota had lost itself in
slums, chaos, violence, and traffic. During his three-year term,
Penalosa brought in initiatives that would seem impossible in most
cities, even here in the wealthy north. He built more than a hundred
nurseries for children. He built 50 new public schools and increased
enrolment by 34 percent. He built a network of libraries. He created a
highly-efficient, "bus highway" transit system. He built or
reconstructed hundreds of kilometers of sidewalks, more than 300
kilometres of bicycle paths, pedestrian streets, and more than 1,200
parks.
He did it all, in part, by declaring a war on private cars.
What makes us happy?
Peñalosa explained the philosophy behind this war--and Bogota's
transformation--earlier Thursday during a plenary lecture at the World
Urban Forum. He began with a sobering reminder to the mayors of
developing world cities:
"If you base progress on per capita income, then the developing world
will not catch up with rich countries for the next three or four
hundred years. The difference between our incomes is growing all the
time. So we can't define our progress in terms of income, because that
will guarantee our failure. We need to find another measure of
success."
The measure he came up with was shockingly simple. Happiness.
"And what are our needs for happiness?" he asked. "We need to walk,
just as birds need to fly. We need to be around other people. We need
beauty. We need contact with nature. And most of all, we need not to be
excluded. We need to feel some sort of equality."
Before you dismiss Peñalosa as some hemp-hatted revolutionary, remember
that this is a guy who titled his first book Capitalism: The Best
Option.
The problem in Bogota was that most people didn't have access to the
public space that is supposed to make such happy things happen. The
wealthy had turned city sidewalks into parking lots for cars. Public
parks had been fenced off, essentially privatized by neighbours. And
for years, the government had been blowing its budgets on highways and
road improvements, with the encouragement of Japan's international
development agency, which was apparently in the business of creating
new markets for Japan's carmakers. So while the wealthy in Bogota could
spend their weekends in country clubs or private gardens, the poor had
little but jammed streets and televisions to occupy their leisure time.
Peñalosa resolved to establish a balance.
Peñalosa's official War on Cars began when he ordered the sidewalks
cleared of cars. That triggered a movement to impeach
him--unsuccessful, since it was in fact illegal for people to park on
the sidewalks. He then launched a system which banned 40 percent of
vehicles from the roads during rush hour. Peñalosa convinced his city
council to raise the tax on gasoline, and used half the revenues to
fund a rapid bus system that now serves more than 500,000 citizens.
After Bogota's first wildly popular "Car-Free Day" in 2000, residents
voted in a referendum to make the event an annual affair. Most
powerfully, the city was transformed from a place of hopelessness to
one of civic pride.
Pedaling with the rock star of WUF
I've never seen a crowd of planners, politicians and sustainability
wonks go wild like they did after Peñalosa's address. The guy got a
standing ovation. Stuart Ramsey, a B.C. transportation engineer,
explained why.
"Bogota has demonstrated that it is possible to make dramatic change to
how we move around our cities in a very short timeframe," he said. "It's
simply a matter of choosing to do so. We could improve our air quality
and dramatically reduce our emissions anytime we want. It's easy to do.
For example, we can improve the capacity of our existing bus system
without adding a single bus. All it would take is a can of paint, and
you'd have dedicated bus lanes. It doesn't require huge amounts of
money. It simply requires a choice."
Peñalosa now advises cities around the world on how to make sense of
their own transportation systems. I tagged along with the former mayor
and his entourage of Colombian politicians and activists as they hit
Robson on a fleet of rented bikes. I observed the first rule of
Colombian cycling: never break a sweat. The second rule: establish a
critical mass of riders, and you don't really need to pay attention to
traffic lights.
Peñalosa explained that he is actually a fan of traffic. "First of all,
it's a sign that you have enough density to support transit. Second, it
is one of the best ways to get people out of their cars. Anywhere you
look in the world, when people use public transport, it's not because
of some high level of consciousness. It's because private driving is
restricted. What is the easiest way to restrict private cars? Traffic.
Just look at New York."
It occurred to me that traffic is experienced differently in Bogota and
Vancouver. In Bogota, it's the rich who sit alone behind the wheel in
their rush hour frustration, dreaming of more lanes. Here, I think it
is generally the middle class and working poor: they own cars, but have
to commute from the 'burbs because they can't afford to live in our
jewel-box downtown. Some might consider it only fair for the province
to build the Gateway Program's new bridge and highway lanes.
"Well, sometimes the solutions to our problems are not obvious,"
responded Peñalosa between licks of his ice cream cone. "We think that
traffic jams are going to be solved by building more roads. But that
has never worked, anywhere in the world. Building more roads will just
lead to more traffic jams."
A Vancouver connection
It would be nice if cities didn't have to wait until they were staring
into the abyss before changing course. But Peñalosa's Bogota proves
that change is not so much a matter of spending big money as it is a
matter of choice.
"Transport is the only urban problem that actually gets worse as you
get richer," he said. "It's only solved by changes in our behaviour.
And this is always a political issue."
What seems to have surprised Peñalosa is that his policies have been
lauded by international environmental groups as green activism for
their salubrious effects on local air, public health and greenhouse gas
emissions. But for him the idea of giving all citizens equal rights to
transportation, education and public spaces have always been matters of
social equity. What pleases him most is the notion that, at least on
Bogota's greenways, children are no longer terrified of being hit by
cars.
One more thing. Where did Peñalosa find the inspiration to transform
his city? Why, at Jericho Beach in 1976, where his father was the
secretary general of Habitat '76.
