Enrique Penelosa on Transportation and Justice

While I can't agree with everything he says (the necessity for government land use planning creeps me out), most of the things this article talks about make my heart soar.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/oct/17/enrique-penalosa-mayor-bogota-colombia-bus-traffic-un-habitat

A few quotes:

"way we build cities is much more important for the future happiness of people than economic development. For example, if we are able to save a couple of hectares of land for a public park, it can make people happier for thousands of years to come."

What is the value of dedicated ROW for a BRT? It's hard to calculate something that will be providing benefits a hundred years into the future. 

"Cities that move by bicycle and public transport are more democratic, more egalitarian. In a “developing country”, a protected bikeway is not just a way of keeping the cyclist safe; it is a symbol that shows that a citizen riding a $50 bicycle is equally important to one driving a $50,000 car"

If only NYC could get the message.

"Mobility is a very peculiar challenge for a city – different from health or education – because it’s one problem that tends to get worse as societies get richer.

It's always nice when someone recognizes that maximizing mobility is a flawed paradigm for cities.

"We must understand that an advanced city is not one where poor residents use cars, but one where rich residents use public transport. "

I think this idea drove the 'Streetcar Renaissance' a decade back. Transit planners recognizing that if transit is continue to exist as the poor suburbanize and the less-poor buy cars, transit has to be able to attract choice riders--relying on the transit dependent living/working in central cities is no longer a viable strategy. Streetcars were supposed to be the clean, quiet, comfortable transit that affluent people would accept. Sadly, too many streetcars forgot that 'frequent' and 'reliable' are virtues of effective transit EVERYONE appreciates, and too many streetcars wound lacking dedicated ROW, an stuck in traffic.

"If all citizens are equal, then somebody who is walking or on a bike has a right to the same amount of road space as somebody in a Rolls-Royce or luxury car. And a bus with 150 passengers has a right to 150 times more road space than a car with one passenger. Which means we should give exclusive lanes to buses and create Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems; it’s the only solution" 

 He has my vote. Admittedly, most buses in America don't carry 150 people. But in Latin America, the 'Overground' of triple articulated BRT's carry loads to rival subway systems. Elsewhere, I've blogged about what it takes for a BRT to do better than autos, in terms of lane usage: 90 persons per bus, 12 minute frequency.

"The whole challenge of urban mobility is not an engineering challenge but a political one. Today, it’s almost as unjust and absurd to see a bus in a traffic jam as it was, a century or so ago, not to allow women to vote"

Does make you think. What justification does this disproportionate burden occur on? That car owners are wealthier and more likely to vote?

"when shopping malls replace public space as a meeting place for people, it’s a symptom that the city is ill"

An interesting contention. Agreed that privatized space can never replace public space, because it can never provide a truly public realm. As a private realm, members of the public can be excluded. And when part of the public is barred from the 'forum', it becomes a question how well the population of the forum actually represents the 'public'. Always important to think about the alternative--and the alternative to democracy is riots and assassinations.