Museums Where Bikes Dare Not Go

Biks are wonderful - just now here!

The Bogotá City Archive has this nice exhibition on now about the history of transit in Bogotá - prominently featuring bicycles!

Wouldn't it be nice, then, if they actually welcomed cyclists to the building?

Appearances deceive! No outsiders' bikes allowed here! 

But unfortunately, arrive by bike and the archive has noplace to park. They used to have a small, simple rack located near the entrance, within sight of the security guards. But now the rack is gone (perhaps because it looked unsightly). And altho the parking garage appears welcoming - with a bicycle and a lane painted in its entranceway, when I enquired the attendants told me that old archive employees can park there. That left me to park beside the nearby basketball court, which does have a rack. That was fine for me and my old clunker bicycle. But the surrounding Las Cruces neighborhood has a rep for drugs and crime, and so many cyclists wouldn't dare leave their bike on the street here.

Once upon a time, there was a bike rack here. But archive 'improvements' removed it.

I parked my bike by this futbolito court. But that was only because nobody wants to steal my bike.

The nearby Claustro de San Agustin, a museum run by the bike-friendly National University, has nowhere to park bikes, either. 

The interior of the Claustro de San Agustin. No room to park a bicycle here?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Car-Free Day is Not Bicycles Day

A cyclists carries his son on 13th St., which was wonderfully uncongested today. 

Today was Bogotá's annual Car-Free Day, intended to get auto-addicts to think about new ways to get around.

Cyclists use a bike lane
near Jorge Tadeo University.

One of those ways is cycling. Disappointingly, however, I didn't see a whole lot more cyclists than usual. Here are photos of a few of them.

This bike lane behind the Central
Cemetery was blocked by four
of these carts in one block's distance. 

Cyclist vs. TransMilenio.

A bicyclist crosses a street near Jorge Tadeo University. 

At the Universidad Central, the parking lot attendants told me that about 80 people had arrived by bike - some eight times the usual number. However, that was probably partly because the university organized a bike ride out to some wetlands. At the neighboring Universidad Jorge Tadeo, the parking lot attendants said that 23 cyclists had arrived - only a few more than 15 people who normally pedal to campus. And, they added, the number had plummeted from the more than 50 who pedaled to campus during last year's Car-Free Day. All of this despite the fact that the university sent out an e-mail reminding people that free bike parking was available. (Bicycles park free there every day, in fact.)

What could the city do to get more folks onto bicycles, at least this one day? How about bike lanes right down the middle of major avenues? How about public bicycles, at least for one day?

Traffic actually moves at rush hour in central Bogotá. Ordinarily, at this hour of the evening this street is a traffic jam. 

Cycling thru the usually congested and chaotic streets of the Santa Fe neighborhood. 

A flooring company uses the 'Car-Free Day' - right beside a car advertisement. 

Universidad Jorge Tadeo's uncrowded bicycle parking lot. 

At the Universidad Central they set up two extra racks for bikes. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogota Bike Tours

The Squeaky Wheel Gets the...Bike Rack

A bicycling family visits Bogotá's Central Cemetery. 

The powers that be do respond - at least sometimes. All it took was a letter to the administration of Bogotá's Central Cemetery to get a much-needed bicycle parking rack installed in the main entrance. More than a year ago, the cemetery installed a rack at the rear entrance - also after Bogotá Bike Tours's request - but that side is far from many of the most important tombs.

Now, not only tourists, but, more importantly, local residents, can safely and conveniently visited loved ones' tombs by bicycle.

The cemetery has long had a parking lot for cars. So, the very fact that we had to request a bike rack shows the mentality that 'automobile parking is a right, while bicycle parking is a privilege' - even tho the law requires such places to offer bicycle parking.

Previously, visitors had to leave their bikes outside the gate - despite the ample space inside. Recently,   while we were visiting the cemetery, thieves stole one of Bogotá Bike Tours' bikes.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Finally!!! You Can Park Your Bike!

The Las Aguas facility, on Jimenez Ave. 

The squeaky wheel does get the grease, at least sometimes. In a sort of landmark for Bogotá cyclists, following recent protests. The bicycle parking buildings built years ago in the Puntos de Encuento at four Transmilenio stations are finally open to receive bicycles. Now, let the cyclists come! 

The parking lots are located in the Alcala (Autopista Norte and 138th St.), Las Aguas (Eje Ambiental and 18th St.), Mundo Aventura (Ave. Americas and Boyacá) and the Tintal (Ciudad de Cali Ave. and Americas Ave.) TM stations. They're open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays and 8 to 5 on Saturdays.

The service is free. Just bring your bike, cedula and your lock.

Parchita waits to park herself!

But we'll see how long it lasts. The city is looking for private businesspeople to run the parking facilities. But it's hard to see how anybody could pay rent and actually make money operating the things. Today, I visited the one in Las Aguas and the guard told me that only a few people a day were leaving bikes there, altho, hopefully, those numbers will improve.

The city needs to publicize the service and remember that cycling is a public benefit deserving public subsidies, because it reduces traffic congestion and pollution and improves people's health.

Blog written by Mike Ceaser, of Bogota Bike Tours.

Bogotá's Central Cemetery: Bicycles Not Welcome Here!

Here's Jorge, who visits his relative's grave every Monday, and has to lock his bike outside the gate.

Bogotá's Central Cemetery is a city unto itself, with thousands of graves, including those of ex-presidents, mayors and other luminaries. In this highly-Catholic nation, many people visit their relatives' gravesites regularly. But don't think about coming here on a bicycle - because you won't find a place to park. The cemetery's security guards explained to me that there isn't enough room - but there IS plenty of room, and there's even room enough for a parking lot for CARS! It's yet another example of the mindset which takes automobile parking for granted but considers bicycle parking a luxury - even in a polluted, car-choked city like Bogotá. I contacted the city department in charge of the cemeteries, and learned that they are required by law to provide bicycle parking - a law they've successfully ignored. But the guy in charge did send a letter to the contractor managing the cemeteries asking them to install bike racks.

We'll see what happens.

This blog is written by Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

 

How to Not Park Bicycles

This handsome bicycle parking facility was built beside the Las Aguas Transmilenio station, near the La Candelaria neighborhood. It has a sophisticated elevator to reach the second floor, space for more than 100 bikes and even lockable footlockers for people to store their things. 

Sounds like an important step for cyclists by a forward-thinking city government, right? Sure would be - if it were open. But it isn't. 

More than two years after this sophisticated and expensive (but poorly designed) structure was finished, it's still closed. Today, there were about three bikes parked there. But only vendors from a single street vendors' center can park their bikes there - and only if they have a special permit from a particular municipal government agency. Upstairs, there were several dozen bicycles used by the 'guards' during the Sunday Ciclovia. Talk about an expensive way to store bikes, which could simply be leaning against a wall in a warehouse. 

What's the lesson in this? That in the city government there are people with good intentions to promote cycling. But, somewhere between the idea and the act, something goes wrong - bureaucracy, incompetence, poor planning - whatever. To me, it also looks like yet another example of Bogotá's top-down planning practices. Did they consult with real bicycle commuters before deciding to build a parking facility whose sides are built of slats which let the often-torrential rain in? Did they consult with other mass transit bike parking facilities before deciding to build this, apparently without any plan for operating it?

Did they study the potential demand before deciding to build large, expensive facilities at a few stations, rather than just placing cheap, simple bike racks at all the stations?

I've commented and complained about this situation (and there are three more of them in Bogotá) over the years, to little avail. Sadly, most likely one day a politico will seize on this as an example of why we shouldn't waste money on bicycles, but build instead more car parking lots - which do get used (and don't require permits to park). Nobody will observe that bicyclists didn't ask for or help design this project. 

The word I'm hearing about this facility is that it hasn't opened because the government hasn't found a private entrepreneur to manage the thing for a profit. The reason is obvious: the few hundred or thousand pesos which most cyclists here would be willing to pay to park their bikes will never pay the costs. Of course, that's true in wealthy countries, as well. The problem here is a fundamental error in approach: a bike parking facility should not be seen as a commercial venture like a parking lot for cars, but rather a public service, similar to a library, meant to promote a public good.

Let's hope that the public bikes project which one city councilman wants to create is better planned and carried out.

To the city government's credit there are large, well-used bike parking facilities at some of the Transmilenio terminals, mostly in the city's poorer, southern neighborhoods.

This blog is written by Mike Ceaser, of Bogota Bike Tours and Rentals

Carlos Pardo, representative of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), argues in an opinion column in El Tiempo that Bogotá needs to expand its cycle path network, improve parking and take other measures in order to once again become a leader in cycle-friendliness. 

Speaking of cycle lanes, look at the one on above - you can just glimpse the yellow line between the two trucks parked in the cycle lane, behind the kid flipping me off. Of course, I'm not sure where else the trucks could park to make their deliveries. The fault is really the designer's.

Parking a bike in Bogotá, Colombia?

Spot the threat to public order?

Spot the threat to public safety in the photo! (Hint: it's got two wheels and doesn't pollute)
Bogotá, Colombia's great for bicycles, right? You can ride a bike on the world-famous Ciclovia, on Latin America's biggest network of bicycle paths - but where can you park it? At public buildings, transit stations, banks, hospitals you're not likely to find a bike rack and are likely to get driven off if you try to chain your two-wheeler to a signpost.
Case in point: today I tried to attend a municipal meeting on bike planning (I arrived very late, admittedly), held in a private university. I locked my bike to a street sign on the sidewalk, as people do everywhere in the world. Promptly, a security guard arrived and informed me that the university did not allow such outrages as bicycles parked on the sidewalk near it. I pointed out to him that the sidewalk did not belong to the university, but that didn't budge him.
'Why?' I asked. 'Who's my bike harming by being there?'
'Please remove the bicycle,' he repeated, unable or unwilling to add any reason, because there wasn't any.
Soon, a second guard arrived, this one with a big, black bomb-sniffing dog. And then three junior cops, all of whom repeated to me the same thing - but none with any reasoning behind the prohibition.
My bicycle's offense did change, however. Now it was breaking the law against attaching things to street signs. Or the law against occupying public space (even tho it didn't block the sidewalk at all).
After some discussion, I went to the auto parking lot across the street. Municipal law requires all parking lots to accept bicycles, but most, like this one, ignore the law. It seems that the law is enforced only when it's against bicycles.
I was informed that the university does have bike parking. But I didn't know that. And, locking a bike to a street sign, an accepted practice the world over, is cheap, convenient, fast and easy - why prohibit it for no reason?
I finally relented. On the way back to Bogotá Bike Tours' shop I passed several cars parked on sidewalks - but nobody appeared to mind.
It seems that in this city if you buy a loud, huge, polluting, machine the right to occupy the sidewalk is included.

No parking problem here. 

This blog is written by Mike Ceaser, who runs Bogotá Bike Tours.