Urban Planning for Sustainable Environment

Cityscape Renewed By Ex-Mayor of Bogota Exemplifies Green Community

Sep 29, 2009

Urban Sustainabillity Expert Enrique Penalosa, Holcim Foundation

Urban developments can be environmentally sustainable and pleasant to live in. Bogata proved this by improving bus transportation and encouraging bicycling.

Urban planning can and should serve environmental sustainability, Enrique Penalosa told the recent IIDEX/Neo-Con conference in Toronto, Canada, held by ARIDO. He knows this is true from his experience as mayor of Bogota,Columbia, and he is now spreading his knowledge as an international consultant.

During his three years as mayor from 1997, he achieved impressive results in the urban development of Bogota:

Traffic accidents were slashed by 80 percent.
Crime was cut by 50 percent.
Travel time was cut by 32 percent.

Bicycle Lanes, Bus Transportation

He accomplished this in a number of ways:

He prohibited parking on sidewalks.
He installed a 300-km long bike lane, the CicloRuta, the longest bike in the developing world.
He developed a mass-transit system, the TransMilenio, of buses with express bus lanes and transfer stations.
He took the buses out of the hands of private owners, reduced fares and improved service.
He widened sidewalks and converted 25 kilometers of streets for pedestrians and bikes only.

Before this, the city of 8.2-million had been planned, he said, primarily for the small percentage of people who owned cars. Many streets lacked sidewalks. Buses stopped for passengers in the middle of the street.

Initially, his plans were met with fierce opposition, especially from car owners and shop keepers who protested the sidewalk parking ban. Now, with people riding buses and bikes, people get to work quicker and car owners spend less on repairs.

Crime Rate Down

The reduction in crime resulted from several factors, Penalosa said. Buses and cars used to splash people as they ran through puddles, and people were often run over by cars speeding by both sides of stationary buses. This made for an angry city, he said, a city in which people took no pride.

Also while he was mayor, he improved education by building a library system and increasing enrollment in public schools by 34 percent.

An effect of people taking transit rather than their cars, he said, was to reduce prejudice by the wealthy against the poor. The bus was no longer seen as a poor man's transport, and the wealthy encountered the poor on the buses and found them to be less threatening than they had supposed.

Smog and Air Pollution Down

Because the traffic on the roads has been reduced, pollution has fallen. There are more green spaces. Bike lanes have led people to bicycle more, improving their health.

Here are some of the recommendations for sustainable urban design he has made to other cities.

Design cities where people can be happy and not made to feel inferior in relation to others.
Design cities where children, the elderly and infirm can be safe. A city that is good for the is good for all.
Design cities for people, not cars.
Regard sidewalks as being related to parks rather than streets.
Make sidewalks wide and streets narrow.
Discourage parking on city center streets; ban parking, restrict cars (as in London, England) or make parking underground (as in Madrid).
Build public transit using buses rather than trains or streetcars. Buses bring people closer to their destinations than trains can and are favored by riders; more people use buses than trains or subway (the Tube) in London where the urban rail system is well-developed (source; Urban Transport Fact Book, Wendell Cox Consultancy).
Build six to eight-story residential buildings in place of single-dwelling houses in cities, to discourage urban sprawl to suburbs, as in many European cities.
Convert some streets to pedestrians and bikes only.
Have a "car-free" day in the city at least once a year. People will see how freeing and pleasant it is to walk without fear of smog and being run down.

A city that is enjoyable is also environmentally sustainable. It is one designed for people, not for cars.

Sources: IIDEX/NeoCon, Project for Public Spaces, Holcim Foundation

The copyright of the article Urban Planning for Sustainable Environment in Environmental Engineering is owned by Thomas Kelly. Permission to republish Urban Planning for Sustainable Environment in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.