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Harsh Kabra

As mayor of Bogota, Enrique Penalosa rescued the city from its dangerously overgrown traffic. His message: Cities must be designed for people, not cars.

Until 1998, Bogotá's streets complemented its gloomy climate. Reeling from a protracted civil war between the leftist rebels and rightist paramilitary fighters, this city was a basket-case of drug cartels, crime, corruption, poverty and anaemic infrastructure. Perched on the east Andean highlands, this capital city of Columbia was a nightmare even its 7-million despondent inhabitants shuddered at. The congested roads were further marred by nearly 120 traffic accidents and three traffic fatalities a day. On their part, civic authorities in Bogotá were doing just what their Indian peers have done all along in the name of urban development: make ever-greater room for automobiles, regardless of the extortionate costs. Automobiles were such a reigning obsession that Bogotá refused to learn from the misplaced zeal of the American and European freeways. That no matter how much money or space is sunk, roads will never be enough and cities will continue to asphyxiate.

Then came Enrique Penalosa, an economist and administrator, piqued that roads were increasingly becoming an index of infrastructure development and pandering to the interests of a relatively small number of car-owning elite. What then unleashed a renaissance in Bogotá was Penalosa's three-year Mayoral stint, when his "politics of happiness" instilled pride, self-esteem and positive communal values in its denizens, while arresting crime. He accomplished this by according top political priority to the city's transportation system, parks and public spaces. "We have seen firsthand how living in poor conditions can lead to social problems," he says.

When the tall Penalosa (49), in his booming voice, recently related the Bogotá model to packed houses in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Agra, his humour-laced message was that the wheeled Frankenstein's monster cannot be allowed to hog the focus of urban development.

Enrique Penalosa - picture by Vinayak Bogam

According to a report brought out by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, by 2030, roads in developing countries will kill 2.5 million people and injure 60 million every year. Already, 3,000 people are killed and 30,000 seriously injured on the world's roads every day. Air pollution from traffic is already snuffing out 400,000 lives each year, even as over 1.5 billion people are exposed to pollution far beyond WHO-prescribed safe limits. And yet, the automobile continues to hijack national budgets with its incessant demands.

Which is what makes Penalosa's initiatives more relevant. His ideas are founded on a pragmatic understanding of urban issues and popular psychology. "The world's environmental sustainability and quality of life depends on what happens in the Third World's 22 mega-cities. There is still time to think different." Little wonder then that scores of cities across South America and Asia are now attempting to emulate the Bogotá model.

Penalosa says public spaces foster social integration. "Cities must be designed for people, not cars. The friendlier they are for cars, the less humane they become. Market economy creates inequality; we must remember that for true democracy, public good must prevail over private interest," avers Penalosa, a visiting scholar at New York University.

Undeterred by squawks of protest, he liberated Bogota's walkways from businesses that had appropriated them as parking lots. "I was nearly impeached for doing so," he grins. "But which country ever stated that parking was a constitutional right? I faced enormous problems for taking down illegal parkland fences. Others sued the city to block greenways that would connect lower income neighbourhoods to upper income sectors."

A vehement opponent of subways ("How can developing countries afford expensive means to serve only 10 per cent people?"), Metro rail ("the Rolls Royce of public transport, too expensive a solution") and flyovers ("they rob us of sunlight and push down realty prices"), Penalosa created a new transit system — TransMilenio — comprising two exclusive corridors for satellite-tracked buses that ferry over 500,000 Bogotá residents daily. The city envisages 22 corridors by 2015 and a bus station within 500 metres of every home.

"I was initially handed a transportation study that said it was most important to build an elevated highway at a cost of $600 million. This bus system cost us $300 million."

He brought in regulations to force 40 per cent of the cars off the roads during peak hours on two week days; he closed over 120 km of arterial roads to traffic for over seven hours every Sunday and more than 2 million people came outdoors to breathe in the clean air. He also got the city council to hike gasoline tax and ploughed back half the additional revenue into TransMilenio.

"Public transport must be for all, not only the poor.," he says, adding, "Trying to address traffic jams by building road infrastructure is like putting out fire with gasoline."

To demonstrate the benefits of alternative transport, he pioneered the city's first Car-Free Day in 2000 (and was honoured with the Stockholm Challenge Award). He mobilised a whopping 82 per cent public opinion in support of a yearly car-free day and to completely rid roads of cars during rush hour beginning 2015.

Commuters are already saving 60-90 minutes per day on the roads and gas consumption is down by 10.3 per cent. By riding a bicycle to work, he helped this "vehicle of the poor" become a powerful symbol of the empowerment of Bogotá's poor.

With astounding quickness, Penalosa infused fresh life into plazas, turned hotbeds of crimes and drug peddling into parks, gave a facelift to Bogotá's marginal neighbourhoods through citizen involvement, and revitalised decrepit downtown avenues into dynamic pedestrian spaces.

"God made us walking animals. As a fish needs to swim, a bird needs to fly, we need to walk to be happy."

Penalosa believes it is public spaces that give us abiding images of a city. "Is Paris ever remembered for its highways? Do you ever use pictures of cars to attract tourists? ... it is quicker and more effective to distribute quality of life through public goods such as parks, than to increase incomes," he argues.

He insists that if a city is good for children and the elderly, it is good for everybody. "City children grow in fear of cars, as Middle Age children feared wolves," he quips.

A diehard optimist, he sees opportunity in poverty and backwardness. "We can avoid the mistakes made by developed nations by daring to create a different model." He has a point, what with many megalopolises waking up to this reality. In Zurich, Europe's richest city, 60 per cent people use public transport and 20 per cent walk or cycle. In New York, more than 90 per cent do not own cars. In Denmark, where the per capita income exceeds that in the US, most people prefer cycles. Boston is spending $23 billion to free its waterfront of roads.

"Urban transport is a political and not a technical issue. We changed attitudes with the carrot as well as the stick. We need to educate people and reach them with actual success stories and benefits. Cities take time to build and we must account for that," he adds.

With Penalosa keen on contesting Colombia's presidential polls, many are eager to see him extend the metamorphosis of the capital to the entire nation.

Picture by G.R.N. Somashekar

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