Estimated Greenhouse Gas Emission Impacts of Bogota's BRT, TDM, and NMT Measures
The City of Bogota implemented all three of the measures that will be discussed below: BRT, TDM,
and NMT improvements. At the time for which data was available, Bogota had only opened two lines of a
planned 22 corridor BRT system. It had also build 200km of a planned 300km of bike lanes. They also
expanded numerous sidewalks, added 1100 new parks, shaded promenades, and a 17 kilometer pedestrian zone,
the longest in the world. They also imple mented a number of TDM measures. Cars with license plates ending
with one of four numbers are not allowed to operate within Bogota during the morning and evening peak,
restricting access to 38% of the private vehicle fleet. Parking fees were increased by 100%, gasoline taxes were
increased 20%, and bollards preventing people from parking illegally on the sidewalk were constructed. All
these measures were promoted by a full car free day, car free Sundays, and other promotional efforts.
The effect of these measures on modal split over a 4 year period has already been impressive. The
percentage of trips made by private cars and taxis dropped from 19.7% to 17.5%. Public transit passenger trips
rose from 67% to 68% of total trips. Bike trips increased from 0.5% of trips to 4% of trips, a remarkable
increase in four years. In 2001, the combined BRT, TDM, and NMT measures resulted in a reduction of CO2
emissions by 318 metric tons per day from 1997 levels in absolute terms. Roughly 90% of this resulted in the
modal shift from private car and taxi to bus and bicycle, and 10% from efficiency gains within the public transit
system. If the CO2 emission benefit is measured against the JICA - projected modal split for 2001, the benefits
of the combined measures per day is 694 metric tons of CO2. The projected benefits per day of the change in
modal split will rise to 5688 metric tons per day by 2015 if the projected impacts of the current plans are
realized. (Compiled by Oscar Edmundo Diaz)