Is your city’s bus system really outrageous?\u00a0\u00a0For perspective, you might want to compare what goes on in your area with what happens on the streets of Bogot\u00e1,\u00a0Colombia.<\/p>\n

A penny earned is a penny earned – so goes the old model of public transportation in Bogot\u00e1.\u00a0 A motley crew of private buses ply the streets of Bogot\u00e1 daily in search of passengers.\u00a0 Passengers simply hail a bus as they would a taxi.\u00a0 To exit a bus, you simply ring a bell at the rear door.\u00a0 A bus will stop anywhere, often twice or three times on the same city block.\u00a0 The driver will take your cash fare and make change with one hand, while moving the bus back into traffic with the other.\u00a0 Bus drivers get paid by the number of passengers they carry, so the more passengers carried per day the better the deal for the bus driver. This leads to something called the Penny War, where one bus will race past another to screech to a halt simply to grab the next available passenger.\u00a0 A fare is a fare, and one more passenger is one more penny in the driver’s pocket at the end of the day.\u00a0 These buses carry millions of fares a day, so the pennies add up.<\/p>\n

In terms of convenience of access for passengers, the system can’t be beat.\u00a0 You can walk out of your office and hail a bus right there and then.\u00a0 The driver loves you when you are on the sidewalk.\u00a0 But once on the bus, you are on your own.\u00a0 As a passenger, you will need to hold onto your often tiny seat (if you have one) to avoid being displaced into the air as the penny rules, and bus drivers swerve, speed, and jerk their buses to sudden stops at any given moment to pick up a new passenger.<\/p>\n

For every bus that stops on a dime, traffic behind the bus must also stop.\u00a0 More often than not, the buses, taxis, and cars behind will try to pull out to the next lane thus creating a symphony of honking horns from the drivers who are forced to adjust to the incoming traffic.\u00a0 This can happen block after block after city block.\u00a0 Many of these city buses, minivans, and vans, in service today are decades old, in poor repair, and spew exhaust fumes into the air with immunity.<\/p>\n

However, change is afoot.\u00a0 This change began just over a decade ago when the city fathers had the good sense to copy an articulated bus transportation system from the city of Curitiba in Brazil.\u00a0 Bogot\u00e1’s Transmilenio<\/a> is a mass urban transportation rapid transit system that went into service in 2000.\u00a0 Its buses are uniform in color, and have exclusive designated bus lanes.\u00a0 The system operates along the center of the Autopista Norte (the North Freeway), for example, where bus stations are accessed via elevated pedestrian walkways.\u00a0 Generally speedy and almost always crowded, the Transmilenio operates as an above ground subway system.\u00a0 \u201cLove the speed, hate the crowds\u201d, pretty much sums up the relationship many Bogotanos have with the Transmilenio.<\/p>\n

The Transmilenio is a combination of public and private enterprise.\u00a0 Public money pays for the development of roads and stations, while private companies run the buses.\u00a0 The city gets a small portion of the profits to help maintain the system, which has been in a constant state of expansion.\u00a0 Avenida Dorada has been upended for the last couple of years as the line to the airport is built.\u00a0 The latest plan envisions a Transmileno line along the center of one of Bogot\u00e1’s busiest arteries, Carrera 7.\u00a0 At the end of each Transmileno line, there is a Portal, a large terminal station, from where feeder buses transport passengers at no additional charge to surrounding neighborhoods.\u00a0 Numbers are hard to pin down, but the Transmilenio today appears to carry close to 2,000,000 passengers a day.<\/p>\n

In 2009, a decree was signed into law to radically transform the ‘penny’ buses, and thus the streets, of Bogot\u00e1.\u00a0 The Integrated System of Public Transport (SITP) is designed to alter the city landscape.\u00a0 13 new entities are being created to run the new system of street buses.\u00a0 Older buses on the city’s streets are to be replaced by new.\u00a0 The end of the Penny War is in sight.\u00a0 The incentive to run red lights to catch the next prospective fare is being removed.\u00a0 Bus drivers will be paid a fixed salary with benefits, and will no longer be dependent on the number of passengers on their buses to put food on the table.\u00a0 Bus drivers will no longer have to fumble for change with their right hand while driving with their left.\u00a0 A smart card is planned and cash will no longer be accepted.\u00a0 The number of buses on the streets is also being reduced to eliminate redundancy.\u00a0 Sleek bus stops are already being built across the city.\u00a0 Supposedly, buses will stop only at designated bus stops.\u00a0 Passengers should no longer enjoy the special privilege of being let off their bus in the outside traffic lane and having to scurry through moving taxis, cars, and buses, to reach the safety of the sidewalk.<\/p>\n

Public transportation in this large metropolis is in a state of flux.\u00a0 Great changes are in the air.\u00a0 With the bus system, some of these changes should be evident before this year is out.\u00a0 The Penny War should be over and done!\u00a0 But old habits die hard.\u00a0 Earlier this year, the city launched an advertising campaign along busy Carrera 7 to encourage buses to stop only at the newly built bus stops.\u00a0 However, so far buses continue to stop where they will, and passengers continue to hail buses where they will.\u00a0 We just have to believe that once salaried, the bus drivers will be able to put aside their decades old habits of treating the streets of Bogot\u00e1 as their own personal racetrack and that passengers, once aware that their comfort and safety have been given center stage, will be willing to walk to the nearest bus stop before boarding their bus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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