For people, not cars

As mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Penalosa travelled in a level-V armoured SUV. The Colombian city was notorious for crime and the mayor had made many enemies with his radical decisions, such as reclaiming Bogotá’s public spaces and roads, for people, and not cars. In office from 1998-2001, Penalosa, best-known for creating TransMilenio, Bogotá’s mass bus rapid transport system, was almost impeached from his position through a signature campaign. His offence: Keeping parked cars off sidewalks (parking them there was illegal, anyway). He also instituted car-free days, where about 40 per cent of the city’s cars were kept off the roads by rotation based on their licence numbers, hiked taxes on fuel and used some of the money to fund TransMilenio.

Penalosa believes buses are the best vehicles for mass transit systems. “With metro railways, the cost per passenger becomes higher with every new line and it can’t move even 10 per cent of the population”, he says in an interview in Chennai, adding, “TransMilenio moves more people (47,000) per hour per kilometre than most subway systems in the world.” For Penalosa, pedestrians and the poor have as much right to the city as the rich. He promoted cycling and built over 250 km of roads solely for bicyclists in Bogotá. Mindsets change only when you change cities. But the problem with cities is limited space and unlimited number of people. So how can a valuable asset like road space be distributed between pedestrians, bicyclists and cars?

For Penalosa the solution lies in public transport and not cars. “Never, never, has a city solved traffic problems by making roads or elevated highways. This is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. We need urban roads, traffic lights, big sidewalks, security cameras,” he says.

He also takes credit for the transformation of the crime-ridden Cartucho — a large area two blocks from the Presidential plaza which was overrun by drug dealers and addicts. He reached out to local leaders involving them in the clean-up. Penalosa says, “We demolished 23 hectares of city, more than 600 buildings, and created the Third Millennium Park, which is a green refuge from the chaotic city.”

Penalosa built and rebuilt parks, planted more than 1,00,000 trees, constructed “47 super luxury schools in slums and brought in the richest and the best private schools to manage them”. He built nurseries for children under five, and acquired land banks around the cities to make them more liveable. As co-founder and co-president of the Green Party, Penalosa is throwing his hat into the ring for the office of President of Colombia this year.

Many over a few

As mayor, Penalosa says he had an 85 per cent negative image when he started out but when he finished, he had the highest positive image in 2001. “Politicians do not want to govern, they want to be loved,” he says, aware that he wasn’t always the most popular leader and had to make difficult decisions like charging taxes. “A typical politician will want gasoline to be cheaper but we need more taxes on gas. It would be crazy to take money away from hospitals, parks and low-income housing to subsidise cars and roads. Taxes should at least be enough to make public transport better and cheaper.” It is “completely regressive” that people want cheap fuel even when they are rich enough to own cars. He believes that the desires of a privileged few should not override the convenience of many.

Penalosa, who recently lectured on urban planning in Chennai, is currently a consultant on urban vision, strategy and policy. He is also President of the board of the ITDP (Institute for Transportation and Development Policy), headquartered in New York. According to him, the difference between an advanced and a backward city lies in the quality of its pavements. “Cities are only a means to a way of life. In the modern world, one lives in small apartments and goes home only to sleep. Most of one’s time is spent outside the house.”

Penalosa was born in the US but raised in Colombia. He went to Duke University in the US on a football scholarship, and later to graduate school in France. “I worked hard at a hotel at night, was poor, and found how important a city can be to make you happy.” He learnt much from his father, also called Enrique Penalosa, who was Secretary General to the UN’s first habitat conference. As a student, he was obsessed with equality and justice, he says he came to realise, “economic development will come, sooner or later, but a good city can make people happier regardless of income levels.”

The passion and evangelism for a better life through better cities infuses our entire conversation. “It’s not normal to create a human environment where we fear getting killed. Bees don’t fear getting killed in a beehive, nor do ants in an anthill. Man is the only animal scared of getting killed in his own habitat,” he says. “In advanced countries, most people killed by cars are inside the cars. In developing countries, it is the pedestrians and motorcyclists who die,” he says.

Today, Penalosa is back to using the bicycle and the bus. Occasionally, he might choose a taxi. He does not have bodyguards, a decision for which he had to indemnify the police against liability for his security. “I do have a car, but only use it at night or on weekends. I am a presidential candidate, and probably, will have to have a few (bodyguards) soon.”