Bogotá

Streetfilms captured highlights of Enrique Penalosa's appearance with COMMUTE.

As attention turns to the next federal transportation bill, and livable streets fans scan the platforms of presidential candidates for glimpses of what to expect from Washington over the next four years, Alex Steffen, editor and CEO of the blog WorldChanging, has posted an essay-in-progress called "My Other Car is a Bright Green City." Steffen says that reining in fuel standards and auto emissions, for instance, is not nearly as important to present and future generations as developing communities that behave more like cities, which are, by environmental measures, much cleaner than commute-intensive suburbs and exurbs. Here are some excerpts.

A map produced by the Pratt Center [pdf] shows neighborhoods with a high concentration of low-income commuters with long commutes.

Want to learn more about Bus Rapid Transit? Watch this StreetFilm and let Streetsblog editor Aaron Naparstek show you how BRT works in Bogotá, Colombia. Take a gander and you’ll see an efficient, modern and — relatively speaking — inexpensive way of moving 1.3 million people per day.

Cities won't wait for national governments to solve their pressing problems, argues Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City in this week's Economist:

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel with comrades Karla Quintero of Transportation Alternatives and Streetsblog editor Aaron Naparstek to Bogotá, Colombia to document some of the amazing advances going on in the livable streets movement there. We spent an entire Sunday, from 5am 'til nearly 5pm, riding bicycles around during Ciclovía, a weekly event in which over 70 miles of city streets are closed to traffic and opened to walking, biking, running, skating, recreating, picnicking, and talking with family, neighbors and strangers. Ciclovía was simply one of the most moving experiences I have had in my entire life (no pun intended).

While the NYPD, Parks Department, MTA, unnamed authorities and, of course, bike thieves, busily clip locks and cart off New Yorkers' bicycles in great number, the Department of Transportation is making sure that not only do bike commuters have a classy spot to park outdoors, but their tushies won't get wet when it rains. Next month, cyclists will be happy to see the first of many new public bike-parking shelters popping up near transit hubs throughout the city. Word has it there was a bit of flexibility built in to the Cemusa bus shelter contract and DOT decided to get a bit creative and try this out. New York Magazine reports:

Last week's saga of MTA workers seizing bicycles locked to a subway stair railing in Brooklyn illustrated, yet again, just how far New York City has to go towards making bicycles an integral part of the city's transportation system. As Larry Littlefield aptly commented, "The MTA doesn't see bikes as an extension of the transit system. It's a new concept here."

Filed by April Greene