Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña to Visit Bogota, Columbia

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña to Visit Bogota, Columbia

Mayor Tomas Osmeña and Cebu City First Lady Margot Vargas Osmeña will be visiting Bogota, Columbia from June 29 to July 3, 2009. The visit arranged upon the invitation of former Bogota Mayor Enrique Peñalosa and supported by the Institute of of Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), where Peñalosa is connected as International Senior Adviser .

Bogota, capital city of Columbia in South America, is where the TransMilenio was established. TransMilenio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransMilenio) is to date, the world's most acclaimed successful Bust Rapid Transit (BRT), and was implemented during the term of former mayor Peñalosa in 1999-2002. Modeled after the world-renowned Rede Integrada de Transporte (RIT, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rede_Integrada_de_Transporte) of Curitiba, Brazil, implemented by Jaime Lerner in the early '80s, TransMilenio is considered today as the leading example of affordable yet efficient public mass transport system which can move more passengers than 95% of the world's rail-based and subway transport systems at a fifth of their capital cost, thereby making it a very attractive option especially for developing countries and cities. Cities in developed countries get attracted to this bus-based alternative, too, which is why there are more than 30 BRT's planned or under construction today.

Founded in 1985, the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP, http://www.itdp.org) has become a leading organization in the promotion of environmentally sustainable and equitable transportation policies and projects worldwide. ITDP was created by sustainable transport advocates in the U.S. to counteract the export to developing countries of costly and environmentally damaging models of dependence on the private automobile. In its first ten years, ITDP successfully advocated for the redirection of lending activity by the World Bank and other multi-lateral institutions away from an exclusive focus on road projects and toward more multi-modal transport solutions. In more recent years, we have focused on working with municipalities and non-governmental organizations in developing countries to implement projects that show how air pollution, carbon emissions, traffic congestion and accidents can be reduced, or how the basic mobility of the poor can be improved.

The visit of Mayor and Mrs. Osmeña augers well for the preparation of the proposed implementation of a BRT in Cebu City. While Bogota, they will have the opportunity to see first-hand the operations of the TransMilenio and learn its intricacies, from the very people who implemented the system and who operates the system today. They will have a full schedule (arranged by Andres Felipe Jara, ITDP's International Delegations Coordinator in Bogota) - visiting the TransMilenio depot and stations and attending discussions. On Tuesday, June 30th, Enrique Peñalosa will personally host them to a meeting and dinner. On July 1 and 2, they will fly to the city of Pereira, around 55 minutes by plane from Bogota, to see the operations of the Megabus, Pereira's new BRT system (http://www.megabus.gov.co/megabus.html). Peñalosa, who had the opportunity to visit Cebu City twice already (Nov. 10-11 last year and recently May 8-11) said it would be better for them to see Pereira, too, considering Pereira is almost of the same size and situation as Cebu. In Pereira, they will be met by its mayor, the Honorable Israel Londoño, and Monica Vanegas, the General Manager of Pereira's Megabus. On July 3, they will proceed to Houston, Texas, for the mayor's regular check-up at M.D. Anderson Cancer Institute.

We in the City of Cebu are very thankful for this wonderful opportunity for the mayor to visit Bogota and see the TransMilenio. In 1996, Mayor Osmeña also visited Curitiba, Brazil to see the BRT there. We are more than hopeful that with the start of the three BRT studies next month (funded by DOTC, the World bank, and ADB-CDIA), Cebu City will get much closer to the culmination of its dream to have the BRT as the main public transportation system of the city.

We would like to thank ITDP for providing this opportunity. We are acknowledging the efforts of the people in ITDP who made this possible: Walter Hook, Executive Director, Enrique Peñalosa, International Senior Adviser, John Ernst, Deputy Director for Southeast Asia, Aimee Gauthier, Senior Program Director, Africa, Melinda Eisenmann, Financial and Administrative Director, Oscar Edmundo Diaz, Senior Program Director, Latin America & Pakistan, Carlosfelipe Pardo, Colombia Country Director, and Andres Felipe Jara, International Delegations Coordinator, Bogota.

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