Making a financial case for adding more bus lanes
Montreal drivers who resent the city’s growing number of reserved bus lanes get little sympathy from Enrique Penalosa.
Those bus lanes are a right and a symbol of equality that take back some of the “undemocratic and technically irrational” space cars get in most cities, Penalosa says.
The Colombian politician turned transit evangelist travels the world touting bus-rapid-transit systems, which feature frequent departures, stations and dedicated lanes.
“Sometimes there is inequality and injustice in front of our noses and we are not aware of it,” said Penalosa, who, when he was mayor of Bogota, created a bus-rapid-transit system now copied around the world.
“A hundred years ago, it was normal that women didn’t vote. Today, it seems normal to have a bus with 80 passengers in the middle of traffic. That’s as unjust” as disenfranchising women.
“If all citizens are equal, then a bus with 100 passengers has the right to 100 times more road space than a car with one person in it.” A bus “zooming by expensive cars stuck in traffic is a powerful symbol of democracy.”
Now an “urban strategist,” Penalosa made the comments in an interview before giving a lecture in Montreal Tuesday about making cities more livable.
When Penalosa became mayor in 1998, Bogota — population: 8 million — was mulling a plan to build seven elevated highways along with a subway system. Penalosa balked. Instead, he created a bus-rapid-transit network now considered a model of efficiency among city planners.
BRTs are more than reserved bus lanes. They feature stations that commuters pay to enter, avoiding wait times and delays. In seconds, many passengers board and disembark. Platforms are level with doors, making buses wheelchair accessible. The waiting time is much less than for a subway because frequency can be much higher. Subway stations are typically one kilometre apart where as BRT stations can be 500 metres apart, meaning walking times are shorter.
Penalosa said basic BRTs using articulated buses are much more affordable and efficient than “sexier” forms of transit — subways and tramways. Typically, a BRT costs 15 to 20 times less per kilometre less than a subway for the same capacity, he said. Bogota is now building a 34-kilometre BRT line for what it would have cost for 1.5 kilometres of subway, Penalosa said.
Subways tend to be favoured by car owners and suburban voters because they leave more room for personal vehicles above ground.
Commuters shouldn’t be sent into tunnels “like rats,” he said. “Transit users should be given priority without having to go underground, they should have natural light and views of the city.”
As for tramways, they are “cute toys” but are far too expensive.
Pedestrians and cyclists also need protection, he said.
Reducing cars in cities reduces risks to those on foot. “It’s clear that a better, safer city is one that gives more space to pedestrians and less space to cars.” As it stands, most cities “give much more space to parked cars than to people. Who decided this?”
Penalosa, who created 350 kilometres of bike lanes in Bogota, said protected space for cyclists should be a right.
“Otherwise, it would mean we think that only those with a motor vehicle have a right to safe mobility without the risk of being killed. Protected bike lanes show that a citizen on a $30 bike is equal to one in a $30,000 car.”
For a 12-year-old, for example, “the only possible means of individual mobility is a bicycle. They should have a right to mobility without the risk of being killed.”
Penalosa’s visit to Montreal was sponsored by the Conseil régional de l’environnement de Montréal and Forum URBA 2015, an urbanplanning think tank at the Université du Québec à Montréal.