by Darío Hidalgo*
(HIGH SPEED once again welcomes guest author Darío Hidalgo, who was one of the architects of TransMilenio, the largest bus rapid transit [BRT] system in the world when it opened 25 years ago in Bogotá, Colombia. This time Darío, who I met while researching my book Straphanger, is taking a look at the city's long-awaited metro system, which is due to start running in 2028. Colombia is voting for a new president this month; a Trump-supporting candidate has won the first round, but the popularity of the metro on both sides of the political spectrum means there's little doubt the project will go ahead.)
// Last month, the people of Bogotá, the capital of Colombia and its largest city, were able to see a shiny red Chinese-made metro train running on a section of a 23-kilometer-long viaduct. It was just a small trial, part of the long technical requirements for this fully automated metro system, which is expected to launch in March, 2028. But the excitement was impressive.
I got an unusual number of views on an X post showing the train in action. (Yes, I remain on that toxic network, in part out of respect for my small community of followers). Checking the reactions, I saw that, at least in this particular bubble, most people are genuinely happy about the prospects of riding a metro in Bogotá.
A metro has been a long time coming. Bogotanos first started planning a metro in the 1940s, and, over the years, multiple projects were proposed, without any of them becoming reality.
The Bogotá metropolitan area is on the brink becoming a megacity: in the next five years, more than 10 million people will call this Andean plateau home. The city has a very large public transport modal share (35%), but along with that has come ever-increasing motorization: more people are opting for private motor vehicles, particularly motorcycles.
Bogotá is globally renowned for being the home of one of the world’s earliest, and most extensive, high-capacity bus systems. TransMilenio is recognized as a “gold standard” example of bus rapid transit (BRT).
I was part of the team that implemented TransMilenio in 2000, and over the first years I was convinced we found a way to advance mass transit at a relatively low cost and with large positive impacts. Many cities in the global south looked at Bogotá as a model for advancing public transportation, and I started going to many places in Asia, Africa and Latin America to help governments apply the concepts that worked well in Bogotá during the system’s early years.
But after a few years in operation, TransMilenio was not perceived as the only way to go in our city. As I wrote in this dispatch, the system suffered from neglect and lack of expansion, particularly during its second decade. The TransMilenio system now has a low service quality rating: 35% of the users say it is satisfactory, claiming crowding as its main drawback.
The fact is, though, from the start, the 114-km TransMilenio network was envisioned as part of a multimodal system, with metro rail serving the main corridors.
Why is a major city in a middle-income country just completing a rail transit line in 2028, when most cities in the world have featured rail transit since the last century? In other words, why has it taken so long for Bogotá to build a metro?
More after the break...
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