Don't Hold Your Breath

'By 2040, only electric and zero-emission cars will operate in Bogotá.' (El Tiempo)

The story never changes: Just wait, and Bogotá will have clean air (and a clean river). But whether

Does anybody care? A SITP bus belches
away in central Bogotá.

it's five, ten or fifteen years away, that dream never feels any closer.

The city's latest plan is that after 2025 all new TransMilenio buses must be zero emission, and after 2036 (only 18 years away) all new SITP buses must be zero emission. (A portion of the new TransMilenio buses which Bogotá will buy next year are to be low or zero emission, which is progress.)

But, even assuming that the politicians actually stick to the plan, the dirty old buses we have now will stay on the road. And, meanwhile, the city will fill up with many thousands of additional cars and other vehicles, whose pollution will add their poison to the air.

Don't expect relief soon.

Why don't authorities try something novel and different? Penalize those rolling chimneys we see belching away unmolested every day?

That would bring our throats and lungs some relief, not in 2036 or 2025, but tomorrow!

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Rolling Chimney Hack

If one day soon you see one of those ubiquous 'rolling chimneys' - buses, trucks or cars which belch out greasy smoke every time they move - sporting a sticker proudly announcing that it is a 'chimenea,' it's probably not because the driver is proud that he's poisoning us.

More likely, the vehicle is a victim of this blog's hacking campaign, which turns highly polluting vehicles into involuntary rolling billboards denouncing pollution.

A typical Bogotá Sitp bus on Carrera 10 this afternoon. 

An improved bus.

Did you notice it?

'I am a chimney'

Another rolling chimney on Carrera 10 today.

Now, helpfully labeled.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Perpetually Provisional Polluting SITPS

Celebrate! Bogotá just extended the life of the city 'Provisional' Integrated System of Public Transit (SITP) for yet another year. Just translate 'provisional' as 'perpetual' and you'll have a better understading of the situation.

A SITP bus disappears
in its own smoke.

As terribly polluting as are many of Bogotá's cars, buses, trucks and factories, the provisional SITPs stand out as extraordinarily poisonous. It's hard to comprehend how a capital city supposedly concerned about health and air quality chooses to not only tolerate vehicles like these, but happily supplies them with subsidized diesel with which to poison all of us.

One might even ask why, someplace which is supposedly defending the public by cracking down on such terrible crimes as farejumping and the possession of small amounts of drugs, turns a blind eye to the violations of pollution laws which cause thousands of premature deaths in Bogotá alone.

A small start to improving things would be to retire the worst of the 'rolling chimneys' - if the city is willing to give public health more importance than private profits.

Quite a blast of smoke!

Pity the poor driver alongside this (non-provisional) SITP bus, and the suffering bicyclist behind taking pictures.

In Bogotá, green does not mean clean.

Provisional perpetual pollution.

A view of grey Bogotá from its Eastern Hills.

I cut out the high-rise buildings to show the bus's pollution in its full glory.

Wow! A factory couldn't be smokier than this bus!

Pity the poor cycllist stuck behind this (normal) SITP bus.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Tell TM to Stop Smoking Us!

Watch out! Poison gas coming!

TransMilenio is in the process of making a momentous decision, which could affect Bogotanos'

Run, run, away!

quality of life for decades to come. The bus rapid transit system is preparing to purchase some 1300 new buses to replace existing ones, which have outlived their planned life expectancy of 12 years.

But, what kind of buses will TM buy?

City officials say they plan to purchase mostly Euro 5 buses, which should be less polluting than the current ones. That, however, will depend on how they are maintained. And, judging from the smoke-belching quality of some of the current buses, the maintenance leaves lots to be desired.

Clean alternatives include hydrogen, natural gas and electric buses.

Why the city has apparently not seriously considered the first two is beyond me. Those cleaner

A 'clean, green' low-emission bus
purchased recently by TM.

engines may not have the same accelaration power as diesel, but I've seen electric buses charging up steep hills in San Francisco, California. And most of Bogotá is flat. Bogotá HAS considered electric buses, and even has one operating as a test vehicle. From what I've read, its disadvantages are mostly cost. Electric vehicles cost more to buy, and the infrastructure for supplying sufficient electricity and charging the buses would be costly.

Mayor Peñalosa also says that electric versions of the long, bending buses which Bogotá plans to buy simply do not exist.

Transmilenio's sole electric bus. (Photo: http://bogota.gov.co/temas-de-ciudad/ambiente/primer-bus-electrico-de-transmilenio-en-bogota)

However, electric vehicles suffer fewer breakdowns and cost less to maintain, so Bogotá could save money in the long run. And then there are all the health costs from pollution, and all the companies which decided not to locate here and tourists who decided not to come here because they didn't want to breathe smoke.

A trollebus in Bogotá. The last clean trollebuses left Bogotá's streets in 1991, leaving us with belching diesel vehicles.
(Photo: Barry Blumstein)

The old is new again: A historic electric bus in San Francisco, California.

A modern zero emission electric bus rolls up a hill in San Francisco, California.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Motors Matter More Than Lungs

Straight out of TransMilenio's tailpipes and into our lungs.

Bogotá's Secretariat of the Environment just decided not to require TransMilenio and Sitp buses to use filters to reduce their pollution.

Anybody who traveles Bogotá's streets can see why many of those buses are called 'rolling chimneys.'
Air pollution causes thousands of premature deaths in Bogotá each year, as well as untold suffering for the aged and for people with asthma and other breathing ailments.

But the agency that's supposed to protect Bogotá's environment (and presumably our health) took the side of the bus owners, who claim that filters would damage their engines. That might come as a surprise in the many cities around the world which have required filters for years - and where residents breathe clean air. It's enough to make one suspect that the Bogotá bus owners' real agenda is to save money by sending their unfiltered filth belching into our atmosphere.

A SITP bus does what it knows best:
pump billions of diesel particles into our air.

Instead, the law instructs bus owners to select from a range of anti-pollution options, including valves, conventional filters, magnetic filters, etc. In other words, by giving the owners many alternatives, none will be enforced.

And even if the owners are right about the engine damage, it only means an additional cost - undoubtedly still much cheaper than the immense health and environmental damage caused by Bogotá's toxic air pollution.

Besides the medical and environmental impacts, how many companies have chosen to locate elsewhere because of the gray air? How many tourists have opted to spend their time and money elsewhere to give their lungs a break?

Putting the economic interests of bus owners first is a bad bargain for the city all around.

Bogotá's environmental agency has made it clear: Their motors are woth more than our lungs.

An afterthought: The polluters are shifting their costs onto cyclists and pedestrians in a very concrete way: by forcing them to buy the filters, to cover their own mouths.

Dressed right for Bogotá's air.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Required Reading for Bogotá Breathers

'Dying for a breath of Bogotá Air', from The City Paper

Steve Hide's interesting piece on Bogotá's perpetual air pollution crisis in the June The City Paper gives a good illustration of Bogotá's impotent air quality enforcement. (Unfortunately, I couldn't find the article online.)

Too tough for environmental officials to identify?
A 'green' bus belches its way along Carrera 10.

My favorite part - for ironical reasons - is the quote from the Bogotá Environmental Secretariat official, who complains that "citizens don't know how to denounce" dirty vehicles, to the government's hotline. That's probably true, but it begs the question of why city environmental officials rely on the public instead of doing their job by stopping and fining these 'rolling smokestacks.'

Hide writes that in Quito, Ecuador he saw environmental officials testing buses' emissions. In my 13 years residence in Bogota, which has included countless hours pedaling the city's streets and avenues, I have not even once seen officials testing a bus's emissions.

Bogotá's air pollution is slow motion murder committed in everybody's plain site, every single day.

An exhaust pipe near Palo Quemao.

A woman gets blown away by a TransMilenio bus, icon of Bogotá.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

New Labels, Same Smoke

Recently, in its desperation to expand its peso-hemorrhaging SITP bus system, the Petro administration has been slapping 'SITP' stickers on old buses and - like magic! - transforming them into new, modern, efficient, orderly and clean buses.

Except for the fact that they continue stopping in mid-block, running red lights and belching smoke.

Apparently, that sticker doesn't change anything inside the buses.

¿Why haven't any of the mayoral candidates made cleaning the air part of their campaign platforms?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Why SITP Isn't Working

Is anybody in there?

For an idea of why the city's SITP bus system is agonizing, just watch the passing buses by an intersection such as Carrera Septima and Calle 19, in the city center.

The SITP buses are empty or only sparsely filled, while the private buses generally carry a good number of passengers.

Count the passengers.

All the passengers inside this extra-long SITP bus could fit into a four-door car. 

Not a good place to make friends.

Meanwhile, this SITP bus runs apparently empty.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours