Ciclovia and the pursuit of non-pollutant happyness

‘Traffic jams’ and ‘air pollution’ appear to be phrases synonymous with both developing and developed urban life. Mothers who smoke while pregnant actually cause less risks to their unborn child than if they were to live and breathe in Mexico city. Pollution in Mexico City increases the chance of suffering from depressed lungs and early and low weight births rates. Among the World Bank’s report of the worst 20 cities in the world regarding air pollutants, 16 are in China and it is not uncommon for airports in Beijing and Shanghai to close due to lack of visibility, freshly washed laundry to come out black and astronauts unable to locate Chinese cities from space that are swallowed by pollution. Of China’s 560 million urban residents, only 1% breathe air considered safe by the European Union, while WHO recognises Chinese urban air to contain 20 times the pollutants considered a safe level. In Los Angeles, the most polluted city in the US, children, the elderly and ill were prohibited from leaving their homes after air pollution reports warned of breathing problems that could easily manifest into asthma, lung cancer and heart disease to name but a few serious health concerns.

What if this wasn’t the case and we could change the association of urban living with ‘clean air’, ‘green sustainability’, ‘family safe spaces’ and ‘community friendly environments’? If Chinese tourism entrepreneurs no longer procured a market for ‘fresh air’ countryside tours and children could describe the colour of the sky as blue instead of white, yellow or grey.

Pollution in these megacities are not caused by cars alone, and obviously there are many strategies to reduce pollution. However, I want to specifically look at initiatives to combat over usage of private cars in urban spaces and the consequent benefits for community. Let’s begin with Colombia. Hearing stories of Bogota from Colombian friends about kidnapped siblings, knife point robberies stripped to underwear and solo drivers propping scarecrows in the passenger seat to appear in company gives me an impression of a dangerous, lawless, wild city of crime, as some residents described, un enfierno- a living hell. In contrast to these stereotypes, this image is paradoxically shattered thanks to an initiative since 2000, known as Ciclovia: car free-carefree, renewing urban congestion into green livability. Every Sunday in Bogota, Cali and Medellin, roads close and city commuters use bicycles, skateboards, rollerblades, pedicabs, unicycles and horses to name but a few non-polluting modes of transport to get around. This is not a token gesture. It is an integrated, weekly part of society; the streets become a festival and in Bogota alone, over 120km of roads are closed and up to 2 million people take part in activities ranging from free aerobics and yoga sessions, markets, music and dance performances. Under this banner of regular festivities and celebrations, it is of little surprise that Colombia ranks the second happiest country in the world, according to the New Economics Foundation.

Bogota’s former mayor Enrique Penalosa shifted budgets intended for highways, into parks, bike lanes, and mass-rapid public transit lanes in an effort to lift human happiness indicators. “I realized that we in the Third World are not going to catch up to the developed countries for two or three hundred years,” he recalls. “If we defined our success just in terms of income per capita, we would have to accept ourselves as second- or third-rate societies – as a bunch of losers – which is not exactly enticing for our young people. So we are forced to find another measure of success. I think the only real obvious measure of success is happiness.”

Many countries throughout the world have been inspired by Colombia’s Ciclovias and there is a growing car-free movement replicating Bogota’s model, granted with varied levels of success and long term continuation over different social, geographical and cultural contexts. Lots of cities encourage car-free zones, Rio Piedras in Puerto Rico, Copenhagen in Denmark, La Rochelle in France, Guadalajara in Mexico, Geneva in Switzerland, Quebec City in Canada and Curitiba in Brazil are to name but a few examples.

Colombia is a model example but let’s also look at what other cities are doing to combat traffic congestion and excessive car emissions. Jakarta’s streets are notorious for heavy traffic and if the current rates of increased cars continue, the city will become a stagnant traffic jam by 2015. The city introduced a ‘three in one’ model in 1992 which states that during peak hour each car on the road must have at least 3 passengers, which was somewhat successful but also created an illegal paid-passenger scheme so that rich commuters could meet their passenger quotas and drive personal vehicles. Jakarta has reached a point of desperation and drawing from Bogota, the city now holds monthly car free days in the CBD, closing off the city to cars. As a result, there have been studies that prove this decreases the amount of toxins and pollutants in the air. Jakarta still has a long way to improve and this is but one effort to curb pollution in Indonesia.

Singapore is a unique example of a developed nation because huge change has occurred over a single generation since the country gained independence in 1965. The island city state approached urban planning with the intention of creating a green city, and a combination of cheap, widespread mass-rail-transit and bus networks (take a look at Singaporean MRT etiquette here) along with skyrocketing taxes on car ownership, tolls and fuel taxes, keeps private cars limited on the road creating a clean and green man-made Utopian bubble. This model would be hard to replicate elsewhere due to Singapore’s advantageous limited size and the fact it is ruled by a government many view as an authoritarian quasi-democracy which easily controls the population. Nevertheless, it is still a story of success.

Urban pollution and contributing climate change are issues we can not ignore and must combat. It is no longer acceptable to drive your car without asking, ‘Do I really need to use this private vehicle and what other alternatives are there?’ From the dictatorship Singapore, the struggling Jakarta to the joyful Bogota, there are many issues, themes and debates surrounding this article and I’d like to hear your thoughts or other examples of urban initiatives to combat private car use.

Tagged as: China, Ciclovias, Colombia, Human development, Pollution, Sustainable development