Petro's Polemic Bike Lanes

Cars wait beside an empty bike lane on Calle 39, in Teusaquillo.

Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro is using the last months of his term to add bike lanes to some of the city's avenues - and earning ire for it. Neighbors and motorists have complained and even organized protests against proposed lanes.

But isn't there a logical flaw here? Drivers complain because they feel that bike lanes steal space from them, slowing them down and increasing congestion.

Cars stuck in a traffic jam beside a bike lane on Calle 24. None of these people could have used a bicycle instead?

But don't these lanes, rather, offer an escape route from the inevitable and worsening traffic jams? The number of private cars in Bogotá is booming, and a first subway line - which won't solve traffic congestion, anyway - is more than a decade away. City leaders are afraid of the only realistic solution, a congestion charge. So, the bike lanes are commuters only real escape hatch from traffic jams.

Instead of complaining about traffic jams, drivers should start taking advantage of them. And they should remember that each of those annoying cyclists is potentially one fewer driver slowing them down.

A cyclist waits for a light to change in a bike lane along the Parkway in Teusaquillo.

A group of cyclists in the new bike lane on Calle 39.

And here's a street, Ave. Caracas, which could use a bike lane.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Nice Day for (the Few) Cyclists

A bicyclist enjoys open road space on the normally car-choked NQS today.

Today's extra Petro-sponsored Car-Free Day appeared to motivate more Bogotanos to stay home than to switch to other forms of transit. But for those who did use their bikes, the open street space and lower pollution did make cycling lots more pleasant.

For the first time that I can recall, the Car-Free Day included a Ciclovia, normally just on Sundays and holidays. 

But even with all that, the number of cyclists didn't seem much greater than normal.

Bogotá's occasional Car-Free Days, while well intentioned to change people's transit habits, are too few and far between to accomplish much. Instead, Petro should back the London-style congestion charge which he promised us upon election, but then abandoned in the face of political opposition.

According to El Tiempo, bicycle - or, bike parking lot - use rose 9.2%, SITP bus use rose 19% and pollution dropped 15%.

Contrast with a cyclist trapped in traffic on a normal day.

A few cyclists on La Ciclovia on 26th Street near the Universidad Nacional.

Bicycles - well, a few of them - use a bike lane near the Universidad Nacional.

This bicyclist on the NQS near Palo Quemao today had lots of space.

Not so nice for cycling: The same stretch of NQS on a normal, polluted, traffic-choked day.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours