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The Peñalosa Principle of Transportation Democracy: Lessons from Bogotá on the Morality of Urban Mobility

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Abstract

The mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa strives to deliver transit services that promote social equity through bicycle lanes, improved sidewalks, and a world-famous Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, “TransMilenio.” Through examining the principles that guide his planning, we can flesh out a starting point for socially just transit systems. While such measures can alleviate several harms that transit systems cause, they rest on an incomplete foundation due to their top-down nature. To amend this situation, the author argues for a restorative justice approach to transportation democracy, using examples from Peñalosa’s mayoral tenure. In turn, lessons from Bogotá’s transportation history reveal how to develop transit systems that strongly favor justice.

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Notes

  1. One could argue that distribute justice frameworks could work well for promoting just transit systems. Yet, it is worth pointing out that restorative justice is a pluralistic model that includes distributive considerations.

  2. Figueroa’s “Environmental Justice Paradigm” is a pluralistic approach that contains elements of and is compatible with restorative justice. See: Figueroa (2006) Evaluating Environmental Justice Claims. In J. Bauer (Ed.), Forging Environmentalism: Justice, Livelihood, and Contested Environments (pp. 360–376). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

  3. For more information on disparate impacts, see Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 91 S.Ct. 849, 28 L.Ed.2d 158 (1971).

  4. Specifically, in 2008, travel times were reduced 32% for system users. Traffic fatalities were reduced by 88%, and greenhouse gases were reduced have by 134,011 Tons/year. For more information, see Hidalgo (2008). Why Is TransMilenio Still So Special? The City Fix, 5 August 2008. http://thecityfix.com/blog/why-is-transmilenio-still-so-special/. Accessed 16 September 2016.

  5. In addition, Pineda (2013) shows how poor residents, along with the disabled, were excluded from the models used to design Transmilenio.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to the participants of the Workshop on Justice in the City in San Francisco for their comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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  1. Philosophy Department, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 4505 S Maryland Pkwy, Las Vegas, NV, 89154, USA

    Shane Epting

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  1. Shane Epting
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Correspondence to Shane Epting.

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Epting, S. The Peñalosa Principle of Transportation Democracy: Lessons from Bogotá on the Morality of Urban Mobility. Sci Eng Ethics 23, 1085–1096 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9839-1

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