No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
“Al Colegio en Bici”: Bogota’s Bike-to-School Program
Abstract
Bike to school programs are aimed at improving the daily travel experience and safety for young commuters and constitute an opportunity for behavioral shifts towards sustainable mobility. However, only a few cases of bike to school programs have been documented. The lack of information is especially critical in rapidly growing cities of the global south. This paper documents a promising bike to school program called “Al Colegio en Bici” implemented in Bogotá, Colombia. The program started running in 2013, after a year of planning. It is aimed at alleviating poverty by providing improved access to public schools to low income populations, and giving the children the opportunity to travel safely while using a sustainable mode of transport. More importantly, “Al Colegio en Bici” is expected to influence travel behavior in young generations, and thus may contribute to positively impact health and reduce harmful emissions in the long run. The paper describes the program and how it was implemented, and is expected to help other cities considering such programs as part of their sustainable mobility and access to education plans.
... Quanto ao Brasil, há um projeto do governo federal chamado Caminho da Escola, 30 que, além de financiar a aquisição de transportes públicos, como ônibus e barcas escolares pelas prefeituras, propicia aos alunos de escolas públicas o uso de bicicletas doadas pelo programa (Baumann et al., 2013;Brasil, 2019 (Bogotá, 2016;Hidalgo et al., 2016). Flores et al. (2015) apresentam um panorama do uso da bicicleta em 38 cidades latino-americanas, 32 descrevendo os processos de desenho e implementação de políticas pró-bicicleta (separado em quatro tópicos: infraestrutura, participação cidadã, regulação e operação), avaliando, em 2014, com base em 27 indicadores, se as políticas na América Latina buscam "integrar o uso da bicicleta na rede de transportes com segurança e eficiência" (Flores et al., 2015, p. 1). ...
A bicicleta é um modo de transporte rápido em curtas distâncias, econômico e energeticamente eficiente. Em diversos países, há políticas de incentivo ao uso desta com objetivo de diminuir os efeitos negativos da alta taxa de motorização. O Brasil, nos últimos anos, também tem ido nesta direção, mesmo que lentamente. Este trabalho descreve as atitudes governamentais tomadas em várias localidades do Brasil e do mundo de incentivo à locomoção por bicicleta. Também faz uma revisão da literatura sobre os possíveis efeitos do uso das bicicletas, destacando-se sua importância como uma mudança de paradigma, em que o investimento na mobilidade reflete um caminho para sustentabilidade. O plano de mobilidade por bicicleta em Niterói também é apresentado como uma experiência local.
The assessment of urban transport interventions is complex, multi-faceted, and context-dependent. This study proposes a multi-methodology approach called systems analytics to evaluate the potential impact of the implementation of temporary bike paths during the COVID-19 pandemic on Bogotá’s bicycle complex system. The proposed methodology applies systems theory to identify the complexity, barriers, and facilitators of the system and uses statistical and simulation methods to assess the potential impact of temporary bike paths on the safety and quality of life of bicycle users in Bogotá during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of the case study indicate that the temporary bike paths could have been a factor that helped reduce bicycle collision rates (by 56%), increased the use of street segments classified with low levels of traffic stress (by 6.22%), and prevented premature deaths (145 per year). The proposed methodology is helpful for policymakers who aim to design active transport interventions in support of a sustainable and healthy environment.
Background:
In Colombia, active transportation has been assessed in multiple local and regional studies, but national data on active transportation are scarce. This study aims to describe the prevalence and factors associated with active transportation to/from school among Colombian children and adolescents.
Methods:
The authors analyzed nationally representative data from the National Survey of Nutrition 2015, with a sample of 11,466 children and adolescents aged between 3 and 17 years. Descriptive statistics were calculated, and prevalence ratios were estimated using Poisson regression multivariable models with robust variance.
Results:
Approximately 70% of Colombian children and adolescents reported engaging in active transportation to/from school over the last week. There were no differences by sex among preschoolers nor school-aged children. Fewer adolescent females than males used active transportation. Preschoolers and school-aged children living in Bogota were more likely to report active transport than children from other regions (prevalence ratios for other regions ranged from 0.59 to 0.86). School-aged children and adolescents with a lower wealth index were more likely to use active transportation than their counterparts (prevalence ratios = 1.32 and 1.22, respectively).
Conclusions:
The wealthiest children and adolescents, adolescents from rural areas, and female adolescents should be a focus for future interventions. Actions need to be implemented to improve the involvement in active transportation to/from school in Colombia.
This article aims to compare the prevalence of active transportation among children and adolescents from 49 countries at different levels of development. The data was extracted from the Report Cards on Physical Activity for Children and Youth from the 49 countries that participated in the Global Matrix 3.0 initiative. Descriptive statistics and a latent profile analysis with active transportation, Human Development Index and Gini index as latent variables were conducted. The global average grade was a “C”, indicating that countries are succeeding with about half of children and youth (47–53%). There is wide variability in the prevalence and in the definition of active transportation globally. Three different profiles of countries were identified based on active transportation grades, Human Development Index (HDI) and income inequalities. The first profile grouped very high HDI countries with low prevalence of active transport and low inequalities. The second profile grouped low and middle HDI countries with high prevalence of active transportation and higher inequalities. And the third profile was characterized by the relatively high prevalence of active transportation and more variability in the socioeconomic variables. Promising policies from countries under each profile were identified. A unified definition of active transportation and contextualized methods for its assessment are needed to advance in surveillance and practice.
Mobility is a prerequisite for satisfying essential human needs. Work, education, social participation: all these activities generate regular journeys. Particularly in cities, however, the “side effects” of mobility such as traffic jams, traffic accidents, air pollution, noise and the resulting health effects are also evident.The planning of settlement structures, the necessary infrastructures, and the design of urban spaces are tasks of urban planning. Urban planning can have a decisive influence on the means of transport people choose, the distances they travel, and the environmental and health effects associated with these choices.This article examines how urban planning can promote alternatives to motorized individual travel. It focuses in particular on active mobility, such as cycling and walking. The paper begins by presenting the fundamental effects of everyday mobility and the resulting traffic on health. It then gives an overview of the potential for promoting active mobility in Germany and how urban planning and the factors it regulates, such as settlement density or mix of uses, influence mobility decisions. An overview of current initiatives and an in-depth presentation of planning strategies in the cities of Barcelona and Bogotá will be used to show which instruments and measures are being used.The article emphasizes that urban planning and the built environment it creates can promote walking and cycling. The examples show, however, that promising initiatives are not realised through spatial planning and the creation of infrastructure alone. Rather, they are cross-sectoral measures aimed at changing the mobility culture in cities.
Road safety research in low- and middle-income countries is limited, even though ninety percent of global road traffic fatalities are concentrated in these locations. In Colombia, road traffic injuries are the second leading source of mortality by external causes and constitute a significant public health concern in the city of Bogotá. Bogotá is among the top 10 most bike-friendly cities in the world. However, bicyclists are one of the most vulnerable road-users in the city. Therefore, assessing the pattern of mortality and understanding the variables affecting the outcome of bicyclists’ collisions in Bogotá is crucial to guide policies aimed at improving safety conditions. This study aims to determine the spatiotemporal trends in fatal and nonfatal collision rates and to identify the individual and contextual factors associated with fatal outcomes. We use confidence intervals, geo-statistics, and generalized additive mixed models (GAMM) corrected for spatial correlation. The collisions’ records were taken from Bogotá’s Secretariat of Mobility, complemented with records provided by non-governmental organizations (NGO). Our findings indicate that from 2011 to 2017, the fatal bicycling collision rates per million kilometers traveled have decreased by 50 % for females and 54 % for males. Additionally, we identified high-risk areas located in the west, southwest, and southeast of the city, where the rate of occurrence of fatal events is higher than what occurs in other parts of the city. Finally, our results show associated risk factors that differ by sex. Overall, we find that fatal collisions are positively associated with factors including collisions with large vehicles, the absence of dedicated infrastructure, steep terrain, and nighttime occurrence. Our findings support policy-making and planning efforts to monitor, prioritize, and implement targeted interventions aimed at improving bicycling safety conditions while accounting for gender differences.
Bogotá is developing an ambitious mobility strategy whose main objective is to initiate a structural change in transportation to improve livability and make the city more efficient and competitive. The strategy seeks transit priority, exploration of alternative transport modes and reduction of private automobile use. This paper summarizes some aspects of Bogotá's mobility strategy including the situation prior to its initiation, objectives and program formulation, resource mobilization, process description, goals achieved, sustainability, lessons learned and transferability.
Planning and Design for Sustainable Urban Mobility: Global Report on Human Settlements, United Nations Humans Settlements Program, Routlege
- Un-Habitat
UN-Habitat. Planning and Design for Sustainable Urban Mobility: Global
Report on Human Settlements, United Nations Humans Settlements Program,
Routlege, 2013.
District's Secretariat of Planning. Propuesta metodológica para la red de ciclorrutas y cicloparqueaderos
District's Secretariat of Planning. Propuesta metodológica para la red de
ciclorrutas y cicloparqueaderos. Proyecto Al Colegio en Bici. Bogota, 2012.
- P Verma
- J S Lopez
- C F Pardo
Verma, P., Lopez, J.S., & Pardo, C.F. Bicycle Account Bogota 2014.
http://despacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Bicycle-Account-BOG-2014-20150109-LR.pdf 2015 Accessed July 29, 2015.
Con Bici al Cole -Proyecto pedagógico para primaria
- Con Bici
- Al Cole
Con Bici Al Cole. "Con Bici al Cole -Proyecto pedagógico para primaria. 2007.
http://conbicialcole.conbici.org/pdfs/proyectopedagogico.pdf Accessed July 29, 2015.