Wasted time. Cars stuck in a traffic jam in La Candelaria. |
The principle is a good one: Encourage visitors to downtown not to do so in space-hogging single-passenger vehicles. Instead, three people are supposed to share a car.
In a city in which only a small minority use private cars, but private cars monopolize 80% of road space, the logic is obvious.
Is anybody paying attention? A banner near the Hotel Tequendama announces the upcoming restriction. |
These cars waiting near the Hotel Tequendama appeared to contain only one or two passengers. |
However strong its logic, this rule won't be enforceable. Fatigued police transit officers aren't going to take the trouble to count passengers and consider Pico y Placa rules and then write tickets. And, what about all those cars with tinted windows? Those cars tend to belong to the rich, powerful and self-important, who won't likely roll down their windows to let a cop to peek inside.
Altho it would not be easy to implement, Bogotá should also prohibit the unjust, destructive and discriminatory practice of providing free parking to customers, students and employees. Free parking generates huge costs, subsidizes the wealthy at the expense of the poor and promotes wasteful, polluting driving.
The best - and perhaps only - real solution to Bogotá's trarffic congestion is a London-style congestion charge. The Petro administration has talked a lot about this, but not moved ahead on it.
Everybody suffers from too many cars. Here, cars block a TransMilenio bus from advancing. (Someone please tell me why police don't ticket vehicles which stop inside intersections.) |
By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours
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