At an elevation of 2,600 meters (8,500 feet), the world’s third-highest city might seen an unlikely place to start a biking revolution.
But Colombians’ passion for cycling dates back generations, fueled by the exploits of legends such as 1987 Vuelta a Espana winner Luis “Lucho” Herrera and 2019 Tour de France winner Egan Bernal.
In 1974, Ortiz Marino recalled, Bogota was “a city designed for cars, but in which people do not have cars.”
The bicycle became a symbol of emancipation, “allowing everyone to move about in ways that are accessible to all,” psychologist and urbanist Carlos Efe Pardo said.
The city now has nearly 600 kilometers of dedicated cycle lines.
Ciclovia has also helped create employment for thousands of people, including the bicycle mechanics stationed at regular intervals along the route to pump tires and fix punctures.
“Here I have earned what I need to pay for my daughter’s education, my own well-being and my home,” 56-year-old bike mechanic Eladio Gustavo Atis Bernal said.
Costs brake US rollout
Ciclovia’s biggest legacy however has been its ability to transcend Colombia’s deep political and social divisions.
Throughout decades of violence, it never came under attack, with the defunct FARC guerrilla group vowing never to target it, according to Ortiz Marino.
The program, which is poised for further expansion into Bogota’s poorer southern districts, has become one of the city’s biggest exports, spawning spinoffs in Chile, Mexico City and Sao Paulo, among others.
But no major US city or European capital has managed to shut out cars each week.
