To School By Bike

A student in a city-sponsored bike-to-school program.

Thousands of kids are cycling to school these days thanks to a city-sponsored program which provides bikes and guides to get kids used to pedaling.

Bicycling down a cycle path in the Santa Fe neighborhood.

'Al Colegio en Bici' (To School by Bike) lends bikes to students, which they are expected to use daily and take home at night. A guide rides a circuit before school, picking up children at their homes or pre-arranged pick-up spots. They form a caravan on their way to campus. After school, the process happens in reverse.

Children also learn basic mechanics and receive helmets and other things as prizes. In addition to commuting to school, the program also organizes cycling outings to parks, museums, historical sites and other destinations. Some 6,000 students participate, according to El Tiempo, under the watchful eyes of more than two hundred guides, primarily in middle- and lower-income neighborhoods. The idea is to set mobility and physical activity patterns the children will follow through the rest of their lives.

Unfortunately, only a small proportion of students can participate - perhaps 20 or 30 in a whole

A well-worn 'Al Colegio en Bici'
bike sign.

school.  'It always fills up,' says a friend who works with the program.

Of course, many other children ride to school on their own bikes. 'The school bike parking lots are always full,' says the friend.

The program has been marred by tragedies. Recently, a guide was hit and killed by a bus, and a child whose parent didn't meet him at an after-school pick-up spot was fatally struck by a car as he tried to make his way home.

Both tragedies may say more about the habits of Bogotá drivers and the unruliness of the roads here, than the Al Colegio en Bici program.

With luck, the program will have a multiplier effect, by making the cyclists the envy of their classmates, and motivating others to buy bicycles or take that old bike out of storage.

'To the museum by bike.' Bikes wait outside for students visiting the National Museum.

Hand me that helmet!

Waiting to ride home.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Modest Proposal - Make Bike Lending Useful

Waiting in the rain. Public bikes await riders by Virrey Park.

Give Bogotá's Institute for Recreation and Sports, the IDRD, credit for doing something good. Over the last 45 days or so it's added two more bike lending locations: on the National University's campus and in Virrey Park in north Bogotá.

But if only the program were all it could be. 

Yesterday afternoon I visited Virrey Park, where the 40-odd free lending bikes were mostly sitting still - understandably, in the chill and rain. City workers told me that they lent about 40 bikes on a typical day - which is nice, altho it's an expensive way to get people pedaling, considering the wages of the eight employees I counted, plus all the other costs. 

Meanwhile, on the program's Carrera Septima corridor, the bicycles are getting steady use. 

Bikes in the National University campus.
Hop on - but only if you study art or engineering.

In contrast, on the National University's campus, most of the bikes appear to spend their days parked, despite the Nacho's flat terrain and many thousands of students. Today, I learned one reason why. It turns out that, for incomprehensible reasons, the IDRD arranged the campus bicycles program with individual university schools rather than the central university administration. So far, only two of the university's eleven schools, arts and engineering, have taken the trouble to sign up. 

So, if you're an artist, then grab a bike. But if you study nursing, political science or chemistry, then you're out of luck, unless you registered for the bike program on your own.

But the program has a larger shortcoming. The IDRD's mission is to promote recreation. But the great majority of the bikes' borrowers use them for transport, albeit for short distances. But, frustratingly, users are only permitted to use bikes within each of the three lending areas, but not to pick up a bike from one area and drop it off in another. 

Riders on public bikes on Carrera Septima in central Bogotá.
But don't think about riding them to one of the
other lending sites.

A program employee agreed with my complaint, but explained that the IDRD's mission is not transport, and worried that bike users could suffer a flat tire or other mechanical problem at a spot too far to walk back. However, the IDRD's mission does not exclude transport. And surely mechanical issues could be resolved with a phone call and mobile mechanical assistance for a small fee. 

With Bogotá's long-promised public bicycles program stuck in idle, the IDRD could step in and do both the city and cycling a great favor by making its program a practical commuting option. 

A bicyclist on the Carrera 11 Cicloruta passes public lending bikes in Virrey Park. Public bike users could take this bike lane to downtown - but leaving the park is against the rules.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Another Victory for Bicycles!

Rush hour, but nobody's moving!
This morning, a cyclist, a Transmilenio rider and a car driver 'raced' 7.5 kms across Bogotá during the morning rush hour. Naturally, the cyclist (Ferreira, the city councilman who plan to create a public bicycles program) arrived first, in 20 minutes. The Transmilenio rider arrived ten minutes later, and finally the car driver, five minutes after him. 

Hopefully, this will convince a few more Bogotanos to cut their commute time in half by dusting off their bikes. Unfortunately, the Transmilenio rider, who also heads the National Federation of Retailers, FENALCO, did nothing but complain about the system's 'inhumanely' crowded conditions. It was, unsurprisingly, the first time that he'd used the system, and probably the last. Transmilenio is crowded because it works. I'm sure that he considers sitting in his car for hours trapped in traffic and spewing pollution much more humane. Incidentally, FENALCO wants to sell cars.

This blog is written by Mike Ceaser of Bogota Bike Tours