Transit Rolls Foward...Just a Bit

Passengers entering the newly-opened Museo Nacional TransMilenio Station.

Years late and way over budget, the elaborate Museo Nacional TransMilenio Station finally opened to passengers today. The huge station is the only one which is completely underground and includes some nice public space. 

Passengers inaugurate the
new Museo Nacional
TransMilenio station.

But the station lacks its main reason for being - handling new and rational transit for Ave. Septima. Several transit plans for the avenue, including versions of TransMilenio, a 'green corridor' and light rail, have either died or fallen into legal limbo. Mayor Petro's administration still insists on building a light rail line. But the project's financial and engineering viability are in doubt, as is Petro's future in office. 

As a temporary measure, the city plans to add newer, relatively clean buses capable of running on either diesel or electricity to La Septima. Unfortunately, however, traffic congestion and pollution won't be reduced by adding more vehicles, but by removing the old, polluting buses now choking and polluing the avenue. 

Transit officials say they'll start removing those old buses in December. But this city administration has so far seemed unwilling to defy the bus companies, and has left old bus lines on other avenues with new TM lines, so don't hold your breath. (Or, rather, do hold your breath, so as not to gulp that pollution.)

And even if the city does manage to remove those old buses, will it allow the companies to simply place them on other avenues, to continue polluting and congesting?

Bogotá transit authorities plan to add cleaner, modern buses which can operate on either diesel or electricity. But the old, highly-polluting buses? Well, they're supposed to be retired in December. We'll see.

A SITP bus stop.

Routine traffic congestion on Carrera 30. Will old buses finally removed from La Septima just be shifted to other streets?

My obligatory photos of buses belching smoke. (Both taken this afternoon.) If Bogotá wants cleaner air, why don't authorities actually enforce emssions laws?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Visit to Miami in Bogotá

'White Only,' in Teusaquillo.

While bicycling thru the quiet Teusaquillo neighborhood the other day, I was struck by this sign on a house near La Esmeralda Park.

A 'White Only' house somewhere in the U.S.

Had the Ku Klux Klan set up a Colombian subsidiary, I wondered? I knocked on the door.

It turned out that the sign and U.S. flag were part of a photo exhibit inside. I found the exhibit (or what remained of it), consisting mostly of pictures of sterotypical suburban U.S. houses, less than impressive. But the house itself, which is an arts collective named 'Miami', is interesting.

Some five artists, as well as a sociological studies firm, rent workshops in the house.

But I found no answer to my big question: Why did the colectivo name itself Miami?

As far as the photo exhibit, by Juan Obando and Guillermo Vanegas, its accompanying information sheet made clear it is a critique of racial prejudice in Colombia. That's a fine sentiment, but not particularly original or interesting, unfortunately.

I was left wondering why this exhibit has a title in English and is about the U.S. Compared to these anemic photos about a whitewashed U.S., an examination of ethnic relations in Colombia would be much more interesting - particularly to Colombians.

Or, how about examining society's obsession with whiteness, which may or may not be tied into racism. Snow white sugar, toilet paper, facial tissues, rice and wheat flour all have big health and-or environmental costs, but represent health and cleanliness.

Or is this yet another example of the-U.S.-as-the-convenient-all-purpose-punching-bag for problems which exist just about everywhere?

I thot that some of the other, random works on the wall, containing sharp social commentaries, were more interesting:

A photo of a paramilitary type beside an altered sign offering cellphone 'minutos.' The paramilitaries bought the votes of many members of Congress, as well as intimidating residents of areas they controlled into voting for paramilitary-backed candidates. 

The work on the left says 'Cheap food for shit people,' and below that 'You either learn to kill or go extinct.'

A workshop in the Colectivo Miami.

The face of the United States.

Ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe is looking younger, and more indoctrinated, than ever.

The Colectivo Miami is located Carrera 17 No. 36-61, in Teusaquillo. Tel: 812-0295
By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Dying on Bogotá's Streets - Quickly or Slowly

Passers-by discuss the death of a two-year-old girl, who fell to her death thru the manhole, then uncovered, Saturday afternoon. The man on the left said that whoever stole the sewer lid was guilty of accesory to murder. 

While her mother entered a plastic jewelry shop and her grandmother became distracted, two-year-old Michel Dayana chased after pigeons Saturday afternoon along the Eje Ambiental in central Bogotá.

But, shortly before, somebody had stolen the cover from a manhole. Tiny Michel fell inside. And, despite the heroic efforts of a street vendor, police and a soldier who all crawled down into the noxious underground tunnel, where the sewage-saturated San Francisco River flows below the avenue, the girl drowned and her body was recovered several blocks away.

Michel's tragedy is only the latest and most dramatic accident caused by the innumerable holes which make Bogotá's streets and sidewalks into obstacle courses in which a twisted ankle or knee is the lightest penalty for unwary.

A plastic 'non recyclable' manhole cover.

This particular tragedy can't really be blamed on the city government. Reportedly, the metal manhole cover had been stolen only a day or two before, one of thousands which disappear from Bogotá's streets every year. The thieves take the lids to nearby scrap dealers and sell them for perhaps 40,000 pesos. The city has purchased 'Non-Recyclable' plastic lids, which seem to last longer, but are still sometimes stolen and trafficked to other cities.

Stealing sewer lids is a crime. But those who pry the lids

A lidless utility box on
a Bogotá sidewalk.

off of the streets, likely at 3 a.m., are probably drug addicts who won't be dissuaded by any punishments. Others are professional thieves with trucks who never ever seem to get caught. A more effective response would be to punish the scrap dealers who buy these and other illegaly-obtained objects. Recently, thieves even stole much of the structure from a pedestrian bridge to sell.

Catching the scrap dealers wouldn't be difficult, either. Police could just send an apparent drug addict to the dealers carrying a sewer lid to sell. Nobody has a right to be offering a sewer lid. The scrap dealer who buys the lid would get fined and his business shut for a month.

While I discussed the tragedy with some some passers-by, a TransMilenio bus drove past, blasting us with toxic diesel smoke. Two young girls covered their faces and ran off. Michel's tragic death got a lot of attention, as it deserved. But what about the thousands of slow deaths caused every year by Bogotá's uncontrolled air pollution?

A TransMilenio bus drove up the avenue, spewing toxic smoke over us. 

The two girls fled the fumes. 

So did these, covering their mouths. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Scenes From El Centro

A rainbow curves above the chaotic Carrera 10 and its decaying buildings. 

Central Bogotá has a not-so-charming reputation for crime, trash, traffic congestion and general grittiness. And much of that is true. However, the area also has lots of culture, life and spontaneous charm.

Members of La Candelaria performing troupes practice their circus skills on Plaza del Periodista, below Monserrate. 

A boy tries walking the slack rope, not very successfully. 

Hamster racing by the Avianca building on Ave. Septima. You place a coin on a bowl, and if the hamster enters your bowl, you win five times what you bet. 

The hamster entered the purple bowl - which had no coin on it. A nice profit for the guinea pig handler.

The guinea pig man collects his profits. Notice that behind him meanwhile his guinea pigs have fled. 

Sunset over Ave. Jimenez. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Robot Invasion

A modern girl's best friend - a robot.

Robots have occupied Bogotá's Planetarium (but only until tomorrow). Most are projects by local univesities, a few private efforts. I'm not sure they're true robots, however, as the creators of only one of them told me their device can operate independently.

This one-armed gripping machine was created by students of Universidad Agraria. During the exhibition a handler was controlling it, but he told me the robot can manuever independently and do tasks such as carrying, moving and sorting objects by size.

Robocol, by Universidad de los Andes students, is designed to do scoop up dirt for research on other worlds. The students entered it in a NASA contest, where it finished in the top for, this guy told me. The machine certainly didn't succeed out of cuteness.

Any robotic people around?

The Robotic Social Network. Sounds charming - and soon to overtake Facebook.

Big Brother's all-seeing eye.

...or two eyes.

Buy my robots. 

The Warrior One car.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours