TRAFFIC IN BOBOTA SPECIAL

Horns, tiny taxis, buses of all shapes and sizes, chaos, gridlock, mayhem, where to start. ­ I have been fascinated with the traffic in Bogota.

A city of 8 million, double that of 20 years ago, no effective public transport system, I guess we should have expected what we experienced. However we could never have visualized it until we saw it.

There are no trains or trams, in Bogota and no bus ways as we know them, other than a couple of revolutionary new lines. The bulk of transport needs are met by small capacity buses 14 to 24 seats and taxis.

The minds eye image I will carry with me will be three lane roads with no markings and up to 5 vehicles abreast continually jostling for space and someone else’s territory.

Firstly the Taxis, thousands of small yellow cars everywhere either with passengers or cruising for the same. Predominantly Hyundai Getz or similar with a minority a little larger, seeking any available space equal to their width irrespective of the general lane formation, or lack of. Constantly honking to clear their way or to admonish another driver attempting to take theirs. Two speeds, stopped, the most prevalent, or flat out.

Apparently the government sponsors underprivileged people into the cabs to give them a means of income. Hyundai must be laughing all the way to the bank. The other night I had the fortune! to sit in the front seat of a Getz sized cab with 4 other passengers in the back seat including Michele, I jest not, as it weaved its way back and across three unmarked lanes through Bogota traffic at up to, an occasionally over 80k. Forget white water rafting or bungee jumping or jumping out of a plane with or without a parachute , this is the adrenalin thrill of a lifetime. I have always had a life expectation of 90, I have had to revise this back to 87. In less than 15 minutes I lost at least 3 years. The one really good aspect is the fares, probably less than single bus fares in Brisbane. I gather this is another Government ploy to keep private cars off the street.

Now the buses, possibly my favorite obsession. As noted above except on a couple of newly created routes 99.99% of Bogota is served by buses one up from a mini bus. The best way to describe them is a cut in half Brisbane bus, seating from 14 to 24-30 but carrying twice that many in peak hour. They are this size as nothing larger would be maneuverable enough to survive in the traffic. Many shapes, sizes, and styles, all multi coloured with a 700 x 700 sign in the front window telling you the major roads they service, their ultimate destination and their price. One size fits all the fare is the same no matter how far you travel, the only difference is the quality of the bus and the time of day, either 1100, 1200, or 1250 pesos say 60 cents with an extra 50 pesos after 7.00 pm. No formal bus stops, you just look for the right sign in the window and hail the driver who will then, with out indicating, head in the general direction of the kerb, from three lanes out, cutting off any body else. As there is an almost continuous train of buses, at any point in time several buses will be either going for or leaving the kerb
dodging other buses, taxis and private cars all with horns blazing. It’s a constant kaleidoscope of movement and noise. Absolute and continuous chaos and mayhem results with passengers alighting and getting off with the bus hardly stopping and never parallel to the kerb.

All this with apparently no policing whatsoever. Speed limits, traffic lights, any semblance of road rules totally ignored.

We were told the Bogota definition of a nano second, the time taken between the light turning green and the man in the car behind honking his horn. Horns are honked even in the most ridiculous circumstances, such as gridlock which in Peak hour is most of the time. A 10k trip can take up to an hour and a half in peak hour.

And all this with private car owners only allowed to use the roads in peak hour 2 days a week, although hell knows how this is policed. Total tidal flow is also employed from 4 to 7 in the evening on some made roads which make going in the direction of the city also all but impossible.

On two occasions we were forced to abandon cabs stymied by gridlock and walk to our destinations. Bogotarians seem to accept all this with a fateful resignation and I’m told the road toll is relatively low, possibly explainable by the low average speed grid lock allows! We saw only two relatively minor accidents.

Now for the open road, possibly an even more frightening experience. Our journeys were generally on the main road north, which to be fair will be duplicated over the next few years, but is currently mostly single lane each way.

There seem to be three challenges to drivers, attempt to do three times the speed limit, see how many vehicles you can pass on double lines, trucks get double points, and see how many other cars you can run off the road, with or without assistance from the horn. Every kilometer is filled with apprehension and excitement particularly if you are used to right hand drive and sit in the front passenger seat. The front floor in Hernando’s car must be worn thin by my attempts to brake. Much less stressful in the rear seat.

The narrowish nature, aligned with the average state of the roads, constant curves and hills, and the trucks and buses closer to the city, make any journey a trial and lengthy.

As in an earlier post a less than 200 k journeys will take 4 to 5 hours.

The saving grace for us was that we were chauffered by our host Hernando who must be Bogota’s number one driver. His weaving, hole-dodging, truck avoiding, and general skills are amazing.

If I ever want to be super rich I want one of three franchises in Bogota, either the Hyundai taxi business and I jest not I saw a dealer for Hunyadi taxis, the franchise for the curved black tarp covers that cover all trucks no matter what size, very few pantechs here, or be the man who supplies replacement parts for, and repairs, car horns.

The only other comment I can offer is that from our few hours there, Lima is worse in all respects particularly the state of the roads which are at best atrocious.

PS. Some of the apparent grammatical errors above are due to the key board which wont allow me to use most of upper case options in the number row, question marks, brackets etc, one of the hazards of travel and foreign language key boards!