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28 | Mass Transit | MassTransitmag.com | FEBRUARY 2015 N 2011, BOGOTÁ'S EX-MAYOR Enrique Peñalosa announced, "An advanced city is not one where the poor can drive around in car but one where the rich use public transport." Likewise, the Rio+20 re- port, "Te Future We Want," recognized the importance of the efcient movement of people and goods via access to environmen- tally sound, safe and afordable public transport systems, as a means to improve urban quality of life and contribute to sustain- able development. Yet and despite this political consensus, Colombia, in 2014, still has no intercity connecting train service, while its capital, Latin America's sixth largest city, has no tram or metro. Tis fact is even more surprising given its sta- tus as an economic powerhouse, responsible for just under a quar- ter of the nation's GDP. In fact, Bogotá, together with Kinshasa, of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Dhaka, Bangladesh, is one of only three cities in the world of more than 7 million peo- ple without an urban train service. What it does have, however, is the world's busiest bus rapid tran- sit (BRT) system, TransMilenio, transporting 40,000 passengers per direction per hour with a daily carrying capacity of more than two million trips. Launched in 2000, and currently in Phase III, Bogotá's BRT has been steadily incorporat- ed, phase by phase, into an integrat- ed public transport system (IPTS) operated by private companies but planned, regulated and managed by the public entity TransMilenio S.A, on behalf of the mayor. Te IPTS is composed of 457 routes and services (including feeder services that cover circu- lar routes over roughly a 2.5-mile radius), supported by 144 BRT sta- tions and a feet that totals more than 8,000 vehicles of articulated, bi-articulated, buses and minibus- es. Te 698 miles of exclusive BRT lanes that have been constructed thus far have contributed to the success of this — a gold standard — BRT system and has led to vis- its by various international public ofcials that have come to marvel at and try to emulate the achieve- ments of the TransMilenio. For all its accolades and of- cial visits however, the BRT and the IPTS have failed to prevent the chaos experienced every rush hour, and beyond that, should it rain, by the 7.74 million packed more densely, in parts, than the citizens of Manhattan. Put simply, the city, following the population explosion in 2004, especially of the neighboring areas, has out- grown the public transport ser- vices that it has on ofer. Further- more, the number of collapses of the public transport system, i.e. where one is forced to either By Kai Whiting Finding a swift resolution to a complex public transport issue may seem a little risky, but there is a sense of urgency for those citizens of Bogotá struggling to partake in productivity at work and getting home early enough to appreciate family. I TransMilenio: Colombia's Suc System that No By the numbers Passengers transported 40,000 per direction per hour Fleet vehicles 8,000 Within a 2.5 -mile radius walk or abandon journey pros- pects, considering only the 13 months the author has lived and worked in the city, is not only on the rise but increasingly notice- able. Every end or start of a work- ing day is accompanied by grid- locked smokescreens and buses flled to the point that a user, due to a lack of mobility and personal space, has to be pulled out by by- standers at bus stops (or streets, in the case of non-IPTS buses) equally desperate to get home or into the ofce. More roads to contain trafc is not the answer in a city split- ting at the seams. Desperately needed trees to combat rising lev- els of car fumes would be felled while the ownership of addition- al private vehicles encouraged. Public transport in Bogotá needs