If, like me, you aren’t terribly familiar with Bogota, Colombia, then the fact that it has benefited from some of the most sweeping urban planning reforms in recent history – especially for a developing country – might be at odds with the few images that come to mind when someone happens to mention Colombia. Most of those images are probably negative, associated with narcotics or poverty, and could probably be applied to nearly any large, unfamiliar, and developing city. But get ready to change those ideas: as I recently learned from reading an interview in this week’s NY Times Magazine, Enrique Penalosa has transformed Bogota into “a model of enlightened planning” (so Deborah Solomon writes in the interview).

from the Project for Public Spaces

Penalosa was mayor for only 3 years, from 1998 to 2001, but to read his accomplishments, you would think he held the job for at least twice as long. There are too many to elaborate all of them, but one of his most impressive was to restrict car traffic during peak hours, thus reducing rush hour traffic by 40 percent. He also (here in the States, this would be an absolute miracle) convinced the City Council to raise the gasoline tax. Half of the revenue generated from the tax then went into creating a new bus system that now serves 500,000 residents daily. Penalosa also declared Bogota’s first Car-Free Day in 2000, and in a public referendum, the citizens of Bogota adopted a yearly Car-Free Day. What’s even more amazing is that they also decided that by 2015, there would be no cars at all on the roads during rush hours (6-9am and 4:30-7:30pm). We’ll have to wait and see if this actually happens, but it certainly shows an encouraging degree of support for a future in which mass transit, bikes, and walking are the preferred modes of transportation.

One of the accomplishments that shows up repeatedly on various pages about Penalosa is his successful removal of cars from the sidewalks: apparently, upper class Bogotans had (illegally) decided that sidewalks were their personal parking spaces, and when Penalosa banned sidewalk parking, he was almost impeached.

In his three years as mayor, Penalosa also set up over 100 daycares for children under 5, and found permanent sources of funding for them; planted over 100,000 trees; built or reconstructed 1200 parks; and built or reconstructed more than 300 kilometers of bicycle paths, pedestrian streets and greenways. Among other great triumphs as well, all of which can be found here. Treehugger also has a good post and video interview on Penalosa.

What is so inspiring about this man and his vision of a city is that it rests on equality: “A protected bicycle path is a symbol that a citizen on a $30 bicycle is equally important as one in a $30,000 car.” A writer on Reading Toronto puts the issue extremely well when he or she says: ” City planners recognized that the great battle over public space in cities is between two main forces: the needs of people and the needs of cars. In Bogota people are winning that fight.” Lucky Bogotans! And, I have to say, lucky Mixsonites – people-oriented design (which is, for the most part, inherently sustainable) is at the heart of all the I’On Group’s projects and especially Mixson. That’s a big part of the reason that Mixson is going up in the Park Circle area of North Charleston, rather than “away from it all” on undeveloped land.

Just think what we citizens of Charleston could accomplish if enough of us demanded a Car-Free Day. Take a lesson from Penalosa and Bogota, and write to your City Council representatives today! I know I will.

P.S. Check out this video on the Ciclovia, which is the weekly closing down of streets to cars so pedestrians, bikers, and skaters can enjoy them!

Filed under: I'On Group, Mixson, Morris Square, Urban Sustainability, Videos & Photos on June 9th, 2008