carlosfpardo's flickr photostream (creative commons)

Buses are playing a major role in fighting climate change in many poor cities around the world, where growing and increasingly mobile populations have led to higher emission levels.  I’ve always been a huge proponent of public transportation, not only for the environmental benefits, but as an opportunity to interact with a city and it’s people more personally without being trapped in the private bubble of a car.  The challenge for many cities looking to implement public transit, however, is allocating the funding and ensuring that the people will use the system.  Bogotá, Columbia seems to have developed an exemplary bus system that was not only cheaper than building a subway, but can actually transport more people per hour than the world’s leading underground rail systems.  By creating multiple intersecting lines, enclosed stations, fare-card turnstiles, and comfortable bus interiors, the city’s TransMilenio offers people a convenient, efficient, and attractive alternative to driving cars.  They also took away many of the city’s street parking spaces to accommodate for the system, so that probably helped encourage some people to get on the bus. 

The TransMilenio has also become the only large scale transportation project approved by the United Nations to generate and sell carbon credits because of the significant emission reductions they have achieved.  Unfortunately, the buses apparently run on diesel fuel, so clearly they need to make a shift to a cleaner alternative.  One of the biggest complaints about taking a bus, even among people who really want to reduce their carbon output, is that the journey will take too long and not always get them to where they need to be.  If more cities, rich and poor alike, could adopt systems similar to Bogotá, or variations that work for the particular city, we may actually be able to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and keep the world’s ever growing population on the move.

You can learn more about the TransMilenio project, which was developed with the help of the World Bank, by watching this video: