Many Bogotans use cycling infrastructure all year round, and for many years the roads have been closed to traffic for cyclists every Sunday for the Ciclovia event, which is regularly joined by around 2 million people.
Background
Key policies and plans for sustainable transportation in Colombia are the National Development Plan, the National Urban Transport Policy, and the Action Plan for Sector Mitigation (Transportation).
The National Urban Transport Policy focuses on structuring, and restructuring, passenger transport systems in the cities of Colombia, and pays attention to NMT and road safety, and to supporting and promoting mass transit.
The 2014-2018 National Development Plan (Law 1753 of 2015) made explicit mention of NMT in article 31 (noting financing needs and investment plans for NMT) and article 32, where the state committed to acting to increase the use of NMT modes (journeys on foot, bicycle or tricycle). Article 204 commits the Ministry of Transportation to designing a strategy to include bicycle and NMT facilities in future road projects.
In 2016 the Sustainable Urban Mobility Unit, funded by the World Bank and attached to the Department of Transport and Traffic of the Ministry of Transport, published a guideline for cycle infrastructure in Colombia Cities, drafted because of expert national and international input, including citizen groups and workshops.
Challenges
Bogotá, Colombia’s capital and a city of 7.5 million people, has cycling networks that are often fragmented, forcing cyclists to make use of busy and dangerous roads. Despite the city of Bogotá having constructed 500 km of bike paths, known locally as ‘ciclorrutas’, which have contributed to a big increase in daily cycling trips, there are still gaps in the network and maintenance issues continue to affect the paths’ usage and residents’ overall mobility.
Successes
Bogotá, the capital of Colombia with almost 8 million people, is internationally recognised for its sustainable transport actions, in particular the 55 km TransMilenio BRT. The city also has an impressive network of bicycle lanes, of around 350 km) and a mode share of cycling trips of around 3.3%.
Bogotá, Colombia, is also well known for its sustainable urban transport systems, including an extensive network of bike lanes and set-aside street space for recreational cyclists and pedestrians on Sundays and holidays, called Ciclovía (“cycleway”).
Medellin has a free public bike system, EnCicla, with has 50 stations, and 1 300 bicycles, integrated to the mass transport system of the city through the Metro and Metropla’s stations. The system was developed as part of Medellin’s Metropolitan Bicycle Master Plan. The goal is that by 2030, 10% of total trips in the Aburra Valley are by bicycle.
Bogotá also schedules the Día sin Carro every year, a car free day which began in 2001; in 2015, the city’s 15th annual car-free day, Bogotá also kept the streets motorcycle-free for the first time (Rogala, 2015), and in 2017, 1.8 million bicycle, trips were registered.
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