Car-Free Day: The Good, the Bad and the Futile

Jimenez Avenue in La Candelaria was crowded with pedestrians this afternoon. Bogotá's brilliant mayor suspended bus service on the avenue between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Today's Car-Free Day saw a big turn-out of cyclists, a bit less pollution and proof that, yes, you really can travel across town without traveling alone in a huge, polluting, gas-guzzling machine.

Cyclists on Carrera Septima. Its bike lane was packed. Hopefully, a few of these people will pedal again tomorrow.

The day's most dramatic change was not the air quality, which reportedly improved by only 5%, or even the traffic which actually moved, but the boom in bicycling. Carrera Septima's bike lane was actually crowded, and even suffered momentary traffic jams. 

Hopefully, some of these folks will pedal again tomorrow. 

Bumper-to-bumper bicycles on Carrera Septima.

But, today, as every day, those vehicles called 'rolling chimneys' belched on, unconcerned about being sanctioned.

A bus leaves behind a river of smoke on Carrera 10.

A TransMilenio bus, the 'pride' of Bogotá, pours out smoke.

Traffic was light in La Candelaria, so it actually moved.

Here's a nearby stretch of Carrera 3 yesterday, experiencing its normal traffic jam.

The TransMilenio system carried 13% more passengers than on a normal day.

And the SITP system's passengers rose 23%, yet this bus was still mostly empty.

Great news on Car-Free Day! Last year set a record for new car sales, and this year's already outpacing it!

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Bogotá's Public Bikes - Stuck in Park

A delivery cyclist rides beside traffic in the Santa Fe neighborhood. Is Bogotá ready for public bikes?

On Friday, Bogotá suspended for at least the third time bidding for a public bicycles program.

Bicyclist fill the street during the Sunday Ciclovia.
Cycling isn't so popular the rest of the week.

The program's non-start is not only a failure of the public bikes program, but another decline in Bogotá's status as a cycling leader.

Creating a public bikes program has been a long-time dream for sustainable transport advocates here. A few years ago, they even tried out a pilot programs, which revealed interest in the service. Since then, there have been repeated plans and predictions.

However, despite repeated promises, no public bikes have hit the streets. (The District Institute for Sports and Recreation, the IDRD, does lend bikes in a few spots in the city, but their program is limited and not designed for transport. Go figger.)

Public bikes on Jimenez Ave. They are to be used only on specific
streets and are not intended for transport. (Go figger.)

Over the past few weeks, Bogotá put a planned public bicycles system, consisting of some 1,500
bikes, out for bid. However, only two consortia made offers: One of them has little apparent experience in anything; the second's experience is principally in garbage collection, and its owner has a history of corruption problems and recently supplied defective garbage trucks to Bogotá.

To City Hall's credit, it did not sign a contract with either company. But why can't Bogotá, a big city with a growing economy, manage to set up an economically-sustainable public bikes program? After all, metropolises including Buenos Aires, Argentina; Santiago, Chile; Mexico City and even archrival Medellin all have public bicycles.

A cyclist wearing a pollution mask. Dirty air makes
cycling unpleasant - and even bad for you.

Is it because Mayor Petro, a one-time leftist guerrilla leader, suffers particular challenges in working with private businesses? Or do potential bidders, particularly operators of public bike programs in other cities, feel that Bogotá's crime, weather or vehicular chaos doom such a program to failure here?

Once upon a time, more than a decade ago, Bogotá was seen as a leader in the developing world in the promotion of bicycling. But in the last dozen years cities, Bogotá's bike lane network has been neglected, public bikes have not materialized and other cities around the region have made strides in cycling.

Sadly, the Colombian capital's inability to get its act together and make public bikes a reality may be symptomatic of a loss of drive and ingenuity from the days when Bogotá was celebrated as a leader in urban renewal.

'Latin America's best cycle paths network.' But other cities are building.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Perils of Being a Colombian Athlete

Football star
Andres Escobar.

Almost 20 years ago Colombia was projected to do well in the World Cup, and was favored to beat the United States in their group stage match.

But then, in what sadly remains the best-known episode in Colombian sports, 27-year-old defender Andres Escobar scored an own-goal - apparently by accident - and Colombia lost 1-2 to the U.S. and made an early departure from the World Cup.

But that was only the first act of Escobar's tragedy. A popular and talented player, Escobar became the whipping boy for Colombia's disappointing performance. He returned to Medellin and hid in his house. Finally, on July 1, Escobar and a buddy went out with their girlfriends. There, the Gallón brothers, who were allegedly connected to paramilitaries and drug-traffickers, ridiculed Escobar from a nearby table.

"Autogol, Andrés, autogol" they yelled at him.

Escobar held his temper. But after leaving the restaurant at 4 a.m. he followed the brothers' car into a

Escobar's funeral procession.

parking lot. There,  Humberto Muñoz, the brothers' driver/bodyguard, fired six bullets into Escobar's head.

Afterwards, the driver would defend his employers, claiming they hadn't ordered him to kill Escobar "yet."

Colombian President Cesar Gaviria attended Escobar's funeral. The young football star had turned from hero to goat to martyr.

Gunman Muñoz did 12 years in prison. The Gallón brothers, who had influential friends, did short prison sentences for attempting to cover up the crime. Later, however, one of them was convicted of financing paramilitary groups. (El Espectador has an in-depth article here.)

Escobar, however, was far from the only Colombian athlete to fall victim to the country's violence.

A Cyclist's Father Murdered

Cyclist Rigoberto Duran.

Colombian cyclist Rigoberto Urán's second-place finish in the Giro d'Italia this month would have made headlines - if not for the fact that another Colombian, Nairo Quintana, finished first.

But Urán had to climb over more than hills to achieve cycling greatness. He also had to overcome illness, poverty and the tragedy of Colombia's armed conflict.

Born in 1987 in the municipality of Urrao, Antioquia, Urán grew up poor, helping his father collect farmers' milk and sell lottery tickets. The young Urán suffered from asthma, so to cure this his father took him cycling thru the region's hills. The boy soon improved.

However, like much of Colombia, the Urrao region was roamed by violent bands of leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries. One day, the elder Urán - also named Rigoberto - went out on a training ride and encountered an illegal paramilitary checkpoint. Altho what happened next is uncertain, the younger Urán says that the paramilitaries forced his father and others to steal cattle for them - and then killed the men.

Fatherless, the 14-year-old Urán was forced to support his family by selling lottery tickets. Nevertheless, he continued training, and soon after was signed by the Orgullo Paisa racing team. Now, he supported his family with his cycling income.

By age 18 Urán was in Colombia's national team, and a year later Team Tenax had signed him and moved him to Spain.

Kidnapping - a Professional Risk for Cycle Racers

Cyclist Luis 'Lucho' Herrera.

Other Colombian cyclists' scrapes with their nation's armed conflict have fortunately not been so tragic. Luis 'Lucho' Herrera was a legendary climber who achieved immortality in 1987 by winning the Vuelta a España. He retired in 1992 to spend time with his family.

However, in 2000 Herrera guerrillas kidnapped Herera. According to one report I read, only after grabbing Herrera did the guerrillas discover who they were holding. They then asked their captive to recount his racing glories, and freed him after only 24 hours, apparently embarrassed about having kidnapped a national hero.

Oliverio Rincón, kidnapped
twice in one year.

Also in 2000, fellow cyclist Oliverio Rincón was kidnapped twice,
once together with his family, the first time by the ELN and afterward by the FARC guerrillas. The ELN held Rincón for a week, and the second kidnapping lasted for only one day. After his second kidnapping, Rincón said that the guerrillas had apologized to him.

The kidnappers "told me that I wasn't the person they were looking for, that it was a mistake and that they were very sorry about it," Rincon said.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Skating and Biking in Barrio Egipto

 These young people were skateboarding and biking in this skate/bike park along La Circunvular, in between the hardscrabble Egipto, Belén and Los Laches neighborhoods. I wondered whether my camera was in danger, but the kids were friendly and most interested in talking about illegal drugs. They seemed impressed that I'd grown up in California, where marijuana is almost legal.

These are poor neighborhoods, troubled by crime, unemployment and gangs. And the area is suffering further insult, as the city widens the La Avenida Circunvalar, slashing the neighborhood in two.

A mural by a group of local youths called 'Emigrantes' defends embattled Mayor Gustavo Petro. 

Residents walk past an empty lot in Egipto. Homes and businesses were demolished to widen the avenue. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Bicycle + Motor = ?Bicycle?

A bicimotor roars down Ave. Jimenez, the Eje Ambiental, in downtown Bogotá.

No pedaling needed:
A motorized bicycle on Ave. Septima's bike lane.

Take a bicycle, add a gasoline motor, and you get - a bicycle? Well, no. A bicycle with a motor is, by definition, a motorcycle.

But the owners of such 'bicimotores,' which are proliferating in Bogotá, are convinced that their cheap, mini motorcycles are, actually, just bicycles.

Motorized bicycles may provide cheap transportation, but they also generate problems for real cyclists. Bicimotores are noisy, can belch out more pollution than a car, and roar along at speeds close to conventional motorcycles.

A bicyclist using a bike lane as a refuge from car traffic, or - even worse - a pedestrian walking along a sidewalk, shouldn't be subjected to one of these machines.

What doesn't fit here? A motorized bicycle
in a Bogotá bike shop.

But, because they have motors smaller than 50 cubic centimeters, the bicimotores occupy a legal vacuum in which they are subject to no motor vehicle laws. As a result, a bicimotor, which has no noise or emissions controls and whose user doesn't need a driver's license, exemplifies the worst aspects of a motor vehicle. And, yet, those bicimotor users seem to believe that they enjoy all the privileges of silent, non-polluting, human-powered vehicles.

I've encountered bicimotores on Bogotá's Ciclorutas and even La Ciclovia, where they contradict La Ciclovia's of promoting health and physical activity.

Bicimotores may have a legitimate role as cheap transportation. But, as motorized vehicles, they should be subject to motor vehicle laws, as well. And, they should stay out of bicycle-only areas.

Fortunately, an attorney with Bogotá's legal office recently issued an opinion reaching the common sense conclusion that bicimotores are not bicycles and therefore may not use the city's bike lanes, (and, presumably, not La Ciclovia either).

But those of us living in Bogotá know there's a huge gulf between what laws say and what really happens. Will the police do their job here?

A legal opinion from Bogotá's legal office concludes that motorized cycles may not use bike lanes. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Scenes From Bogotá's 2013 Bicycle Week

At the Bike Expo, a French tourists lifts a lightweight bamboo bike. 

Bogotá's annual Bicycle Week, consisting of events intended to promote cycling, wound up today. The week also included bicyle shows, circus performances and races.

Environmental activist Greenman with students in the Parque Nacional.

'Fewer Cars, More Bikes.'

A performer and bike tourist meet. 

A bicycle tourist from the States gives a dancer a lift.

Bici-Tante, a young Bogotá cycling magazine. 

Trendy new bikes, including one made of bamboo, on display.

Unicyclists at work.

Kids, participants in the Al Colegio in Bici (To High School by Bike) program. 

Bici-Cupid, who's supposed to make one fall in love with cycling.

Welcome to Bicycle Week. 

Racers fly downhill in the Parque Nacional.

Where did Guy Fawkes come from?

Harley-Style bikes. 

Bikes, and bicyclists, from yesteryear.

Women cyclists race uphill in Bogotá's Parque Nacional.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Ciclovia Pioneer's Story

Gonzalo displaying a book of Ciclovia photos from yesteryear.

In 1982, during a visit to Rio de Janeiro, Gonzalo Medina was struck by that city's policy of shutting a shoreline avenue on Sundays to car traffic for the use of pedestrians and bicyclists.

La Ciclovia today, on Ave. Septima.

When Medina, an official with Bogotá's transit department, returned home, he convinced city officials to try the same experiment on the Circunvular, the avenue running along the city's Eastern Hills. After complaints that the closed road blocked access to a hospital, La Ciclovia was shifted to Ave. Septima.

Then, as now, taking space from motorized traffic for bicycles required convincing.

"Riding a bike was not only in bad taste," recalled Medina, but cyclists were seen "as people who couldn't afford a Renault."

Over the following years, La Ciclovia won supporters and confronted opponents, Medina says, including some who wanted to restrict or even eliminate the institution in order to open roads for cars. La Ciclovia overcame its most recent threat several years ago, when a senator introduced a law to shut down La Ciclovia two hours earlier. The proposal died after many Ciclovia users, as well as city officials including the sitting and previous mayors, expressed their opposition. Over the years, the city has also chopped some segments off of La Ciclovia, usually to make way for infrastructure projects.

The Ciclovía concept didn't begin with Medina's trip to Rio. In the early- and mid-1970s, a student organization named 'El Mitin de la Bicicleta' created a Ciclovia on Avenidas Septima and 13. A 1976 decree formalized the idea was formalized, but it's not clear to me how long it lasted.

Yesteryear's Ciclovia.

Since its humble beginning La Ciclovia has extended to hundreds of kilometers and added cycling courses and mass aerobics practices called La Recrovia.

The idea has also expanded across Latin America and into the United States, altho Colombia's version is still the largest and most frequent. There's even an International Network of Ciclovias organization to promote the concept. La Ciclovia, along with the TransMilenio express bus network and the city's bike lane network, once gave Bogotá a reputation for progressiveness and urban ingenuity, altho that image has since faded.

Medina says the biggest improvement to La Ciclovia over the years was Mayor Enrique Peñalosa's addition of the annual Ciclovia Nocturna, or night-time Ciclovia.

But the Ciclovia Nocturna happens only once a year, and part of its route is so packed with pedestrians that you can't ride a bike.

'One less car.' But La Ciclovia has not, unfortunately,
spurred a shift to clean transit for Bogotá.

 More important, it seems to me, is the way that La Ciclovia has grown into an essential Bogotá institution.

Various studies have found that the Ciclovia concept benefits not only participants' health, but also the economy, by saving on medical expenses.

 "I'm proud," Medina says of his work. "It was an important contribution."

 In Havana, Cuba, where Medina's wife works for the Colombian embassy, and where he says biking is risky, he continues pushing for better cycling conditions.

Learning to ride on Plaza Bolivar.

But to get more people pedaling, Medina believes that bikes must change there image from being 'the poor man's vehicle.' In Bogotá, most bicycle commuters are still low income people who ride bikes to save on bus fare. In Colombia's class-conscious culture, the middle class and wealthy want to be seen in cars - even if that means going into debt and spending hours trapped in traffic jams.

"There should be executives on bikes, so that the bike has status," Medina says.

Medina also advocates more space for pedestrians and cyclists, including car-free streets in the historical center.

Those measures would help Bogotá fulfill more of La Ciclovia's potential - to get Bogotanos to use their bikes not only on Sundays, but every day.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours