Post by seacid on Jun 11, 2008 23:18:01 GMT 8
Less cars, more parks: Bogotá leads way in improving urban living
By DAVID DIZON
Abs-cbnNEWS.com
www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=121133
Most public officials promise improved lives for their constituents through
more investments in public infrastructure and poverty alleviation. One local
official of Bogotá, Colombia did it by waging a war on private cars and
reclaiming the city’s sidewalks for his constituents.
Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogota, says he faced the same challenges
as any other public official in the Third World when he was elected in
1995 - a high crime rate, congested roads and an income gap between the rich
and poor that was widening everyday. He then made a decision: to define
progress in his city not in terms of the people’s income but how safe they
were on city streets.
"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,” he said during the
keynote adress of the Asia Clean Energy Forum at the Asian Development Bank.
Peñalosa said one of his first decisions as mayor was to reject a US$15
billion highways program proposed by the Japan International Cooperation
Agency to handle the city’s traffic problem. His reason: building highways
would not solve traffic jams.
He said that in Montreal, Canada, average travel time in the city increased
from 62 minutes in 1992 to 76 minutes in 2005 despite the construction of
several highways in the city.
“Bigger roads only mean more cars. Solving traffic jams with bigger highways
is like putting out a fire with gasoline,” he said.
Instead of building highways, Peñalosa used the funds to build parks,
quality homes, nurseries, libraries and community centers. He built 50 new
public schools and increased enrolment by 34 percent.
He also earned the ire of car owners by restricting car use, increasing gas
taxes and building hundreds of kilometers of bike and pedestrian paths.
One battle that almost got him impeached was his decision to restrict car
owners from using Bogotá’s sidewalks for parking. "Parking is not a
constitutional right in any country. All great cities have great sidewalks
and great parks. The width and quality of sidewalks are good measures of a
society’s democracy and equity," he said.
Peñalosa also instituted car-free work days wherein 120 kilometers of roads
are closed to motor vehicles for seven hours. This encouraged people to go
to work by walking or biking, which lessened air pollution and traffic.
He also invested heavily in a bus system that carries 700,000 people a day
at a cost of $300 million. Today, Bogotá’s busing system is one of the
fastest and most efficient in the world.
Peñalosa now advises cities around the world on how to make sense of their
own transportation systems.What surprises him is how his policies have been
lauded by environmental groups for promoting public health and protecting
the environment.
For him, reforms in the government's transport policy starts with a passion
of improving the quality of life of people.
"Cities in developing countries should be better than cities that were built
hundreds of years ago. We should have cities where the people want to be
outside -- a city that is safe for children and built around the needs of
people and not cars," he said.
###
By DAVID DIZON
Abs-cbnNEWS.com
www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=121133
Most public officials promise improved lives for their constituents through
more investments in public infrastructure and poverty alleviation. One local
official of Bogotá, Colombia did it by waging a war on private cars and
reclaiming the city’s sidewalks for his constituents.
Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogota, says he faced the same challenges
as any other public official in the Third World when he was elected in
1995 - a high crime rate, congested roads and an income gap between the rich
and poor that was widening everyday. He then made a decision: to define
progress in his city not in terms of the people’s income but how safe they
were on city streets.
"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,” he said during the
keynote adress of the Asia Clean Energy Forum at the Asian Development Bank.
Peñalosa said one of his first decisions as mayor was to reject a US$15
billion highways program proposed by the Japan International Cooperation
Agency to handle the city’s traffic problem. His reason: building highways
would not solve traffic jams.
He said that in Montreal, Canada, average travel time in the city increased
from 62 minutes in 1992 to 76 minutes in 2005 despite the construction of
several highways in the city.
“Bigger roads only mean more cars. Solving traffic jams with bigger highways
is like putting out a fire with gasoline,” he said.
Instead of building highways, Peñalosa used the funds to build parks,
quality homes, nurseries, libraries and community centers. He built 50 new
public schools and increased enrolment by 34 percent.
He also earned the ire of car owners by restricting car use, increasing gas
taxes and building hundreds of kilometers of bike and pedestrian paths.
One battle that almost got him impeached was his decision to restrict car
owners from using Bogotá’s sidewalks for parking. "Parking is not a
constitutional right in any country. All great cities have great sidewalks
and great parks. The width and quality of sidewalks are good measures of a
society’s democracy and equity," he said.
Peñalosa also instituted car-free work days wherein 120 kilometers of roads
are closed to motor vehicles for seven hours. This encouraged people to go
to work by walking or biking, which lessened air pollution and traffic.
He also invested heavily in a bus system that carries 700,000 people a day
at a cost of $300 million. Today, Bogotá’s busing system is one of the
fastest and most efficient in the world.
Peñalosa now advises cities around the world on how to make sense of their
own transportation systems.What surprises him is how his policies have been
lauded by environmental groups for promoting public health and protecting
the environment.
For him, reforms in the government's transport policy starts with a passion
of improving the quality of life of people.
"Cities in developing countries should be better than cities that were built
hundreds of years ago. We should have cities where the people want to be
outside -- a city that is safe for children and built around the needs of
people and not cars," he said.
###