This weeks green thought comes from the former Mayor of Bogota, Mr Enrique
Penalosa
“A
developed country is not a place where the poor have cars, it’s where the
rich ride public transportation”.
During
his term of office, Enrique Penalosa built 300km of protected bike lanes, and
said:
“When we build very high
quality bicycle infrastructure, besides protecting cyclists, it shows that a
citizen on a $30 bicycle is equally as important to one in a $30,000 car.
Every Sunday and on public holidays, motor vehicles are
banned from 18 out of 20 districts of the city of Bogota. Since 1976 (i.e. for
more than 35 years), the “Ciclovía“, the day of the week, when
almost the whole city becomes a bike lane, is carried out. In 1980, the
Ciclovia was enshrined in law.
Besides the bicycle infrastructure, the former mayor
established the TransMilenio, a bus rapid
transit system, which provides “public transportation that improves traffic flow and reduces smog
at a fraction of the cost of building a subway.” The
TransMilenio and the bike infrastructure are interlinked: “TransMilenio stations at
each end of a line have huge bicycle
parking facilities to facilitate bicyclists using the system.”
Just like Stafford !
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