Transit Chaos Continues

A red TransMilenio bus amidst the traffic chaos.

TransMilenio buses, albeit late and few, are finally rolling down Tenth Ave., altho the lines won't be in full operation until the underground bus station by the National Museum is completed early next year.

Traffic chaos on Tenth Ave.

So, why aren't they removing those ancient, extraordinarily polluting private buses from the avenue? (The TM buses are merely highly polluting.) City officials say the old buses won't start coming off of the avenue until early next year. Similarly, the first buses of the much-ballyhooed Integrated System of Public Transit (SITP) are finally rolling - and are almost empty, at least in part because the old bus lines they're supposed to replace continue operating and competing with them.

To me, these are yet more indications of the powerful hold the bus companies have on city policy. This dovetails with the almost complete impunity drivers seem to have to flout the laws, about pollution, red lights, drunkenness, etc.

Case in point is the Bogotá bus driver who yesterday ran a red light and hit two children, killing one of them and injuring the other, and then tried to flee the scene, according to witnesses. The driver also had millions of pesos in unpaid traffic fines going back years. Yet, he wasn't even jailed for hitting the children.

The city of Cali seems to be standing up to the bus companies, even defying a city-wide bus strike, in its drive to impose order.

Bogotá has thousands of surplus, unnecessary buses (and many tens of thousands of unnecessary private cars). A first step to taking some of them off of the road would be to enforce the city's pollution and transit laws. A few heavy fines would make many of those old machines unprofitable.

An old bus belches smoke.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours