Fighting Climate Change with Bus Rapid Transit

Bogota, Colombia's bus rapid transit system is seen as a shining example of how buses can make up a good public transportation system in cities. It's also being looked at as a model for fighting climate change.

1 minute read

July 10, 2009, 11:00 AM PDT

By Nate Berg


The New York Times looks at the system and it's clean-burning buses and discusses what other cities' transit systems (and officials) can learn.

"[S]leek, red vehicles full of commuters speed down the four center lanes of Avenida de las Américas. The long, segmented, low-emission buses are part of a novel public transportation system called bus rapid transit, or B.R.T. It is more like an above-ground subway than a collection of bus routes, with seven intersecting lines, enclosed stations that are entered through turnstiles with the swipe of a farecard and coaches that feel like trams inside. Versions of these systems are now being planned or built in dozens of developing cities around the world - Mexico City, Cape Town, Jakarta, Indonesia, and Ahmedabad, India, to name a few - providing a public transportation network that improves traffic flow and reduces smog at a fraction of the cost of building a subway.

But the rapid transit systems have another benefit: they may hold a key to combating climate change."

Thursday, July 9, 2009 in The New York Times

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