Feature: LatAm cities put people first in developing urban transportation

Car for hire service Cabify has unveiled a fleet of private jets and helicopters earlier this month to fly Mexico City residents with deep pockets over the congested streets of the big city.

Those rich enough to afford to "cabifly" celebrated, but most were left wondering if this was the future of urban transport: speed and comfort, but only for the privileged few.

Latin America's new generation of local leaders and urban planners appeared determined to change the status quo of the transportation, out of a realization that cities must prioritize people over cars in order to survive, especially in the age of global warming.

"Transportation, driven by rapid growth in car use, has been the fastest growing source of CO2 in the world," according to the New York-based Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), which promotes mobility projects around the world, including Latin America.

"An affordable but largely overlooked way to cut that pollution is to give people clean options to use public transportation, walking and cycling, expanding mobility options especially for the poor and curbing air pollution from traffic," an ITDP report said, adding that "the analysis shows that getting away from car-centric development will cut urban CO2 dramatically and also reduce costs."

Major Latin American metropolises, such as Mexico City, Colombia's capital Bogota and Brazil's Rio de Janeiro, are rethinking the long-held belief that proper urban planning requires miles of roadways and acres of parking lots to accommodate cars, and are focusing instead on building better mass transit systems and people-friendly environments, like parks and pedestrian promenades.

The problem in Latin America, however, is that inequality often gets in the way of implementing those changes, as Bogota's newly reelected mayor, Enrique Penalosa, has noted.

Elected to a second term on Oct. 25 after serving as mayor from 1998 to 2001, Penalosa often speaks out about the need to plan cities around people, not cars.

"An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport," Penalosa said in a 2013 TED talk titled "Why buses represent democracy in action."

Penalosa, who joked that he was "almost impeached" during his first term for trying to reclaim Bogota's sidewalks from cars, pointed to New York, Paris and London as examples of integrated cities where the subways serve people from all walks of life.

Latin American societies are much more segregated, Penalosa said in an earlier interview in Lima, Peru.

"High-income residents of Lima or Bogota feel very proud when they go to Paris, New York or London and can get around by subway. But here in their own city, they think it's dreadful to have to commute together with the poor people, it seems unimaginable to them," said Penalosa.

The car also continues to be a coveted symbol of social status in Latin America, and cities like Mexico continue to build infrastructure exclusively designed for automobiles, like elevated roads.

But the shift from cars to mass transit has to happen to make cities more sustainable, which is why Penalosa is a big proponent of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems with their own dedicated lanes.

Despite the cultural hurdles, a growing number of Latin American cities are making strides in improving mobility. In the past 10 years, eight have won the ITDP's Sustainable Transport Award for having "implemented innovative and sustainable transportation projects," including Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2015; Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2014; Mexico City, Mexico in 2013; Medellin, Colombia in 2012; Guayaquil, Ecuador in 2007; and Bogota, Colombia in 2005.

Brazil's major cities have growing concerns about air pollution and are seeking to upgrade their urban transportation systems, which mostly use diesel buses. Considering the high costs, long construction periods of new subway and railway lines, express bus lanes with electric vehicles serve as the best option for bigger cities.

Belo Horizonte has launched a "gold-standard" BRT system, and created pedestrian-only streets and 27 km of bikeways.

In accepting the award, Mayor Marcio Lacerda said, "We in Belo Horizonte are working every day to make life better. We understand that good transport is fundamental to improving life for everyone in our city. This award means so much to us because it indicates that we are getting better, and that the work is worth it." Endi