Through the Sustainable Mobility Plan, we prioritize public transport and promote healthy means of mobility, such as biking and walking, so that we all enjoy our trips around the City (Plan de Movilidad Sustentable)
Background
Argentina, one of the most urbanized countries in Latin America has about 90 percent of its population living in urban areas, with about one-third of the country’s population living in Greater Buenos Aires or metropolitan Buenos Aires (World Bank 2017). Buenos Aires is the center of the metropolitan area and a subnational government with special politico administrative status. Half of the population of Greater Buenos Aires uses public transport for their daily commute. For the low-income population, walking accounts for 36 percent of travel.
Although Argentina has no national NMT commitment or policy, Buenos Aires as well as several smaller towns and local governments have made a concerted effort in the last few years to support and encourage sustainable transport modes.
Challenges
Like many cities, urbanization in Buenos Aires has led to increasing private car ownership with the number of new motor vehicles steadily increasing whilst public transport services have been deteriorating. The lack of enforcement of traffic rules has also led to worsening and congestion in urban areas. In addition to an increase in motorbikes, there has been safety and environmental concerns, which also contribute to limiting the population’s mobility and accessibility to socioeconomic opportunities.
Successes
In 2009, Buenos Aires launched its Sustainable Mobility Plan (Plan de Movilidad Sustentable), aiming to improve access to daily needs, prioritize NMT and public transport, bring order to general traffic, decrease congestion, and reduce traffic accidents and casualties (Escayol, 2015).
In line with the Sustainable Mobility Plan (www.buenosaires.gob.ar/movilidad), the city restructured its 20-lane 9 de Julio avenue into a public transit corridor, with 100 blocks of pedestrianisation, a 300 km bicycle network, a public bicycle system (ecobici), and a number of pedestrian-priority intersections. Ecobici now features 200 automated stations, 3 000 bicycles and 24-hour service.
Complementing these interventions are policies that encourage the installation of bicycle parking, education programmes, and credit assistance to purchase bicycles. The city intends to present a Bill that will generate the necessary conditions so that more people can choose the bicycle as a means of transport. In addition to the 250 km of the network of exclusive bike lanes that already existed, an additional 17km of bike lanes were recently completed in different parts of the city following the COVID-19 pandemic that made it necessary to accelerate many of the projects that were already planned. The new law is set to generate new forms of financing to accelerate the growth of the bike in the Buenos Aries, whose goal is to reach one million daily trips by bike by end of 2023.
