“Moving together: The new mobility culture considers not only transit but also health, education, housing, waste, and social needs. No transportation system is an island; it must coordinate all shared systems for maximum effect.” Bruce Mau, Massive Change

Building better cities has been an issue that society has faced since the dawn of time, and still exists today not only in developed countries but also in developing countries. The quality of life that a city provides is not only a priority but a right for its inhabitants. With ever-increasing population, crime, social injustice, poverty, and pollution rates, we need to re-focus our priorities and resources to re-design integrative sustainable systems to improve mobility and quality of life for everyone.

We cannot talk about urban transportation until we know what type of city we want. How do we want to live? Do we want to create a city for humans or a city for automobiles? The important questions are not about engineering, but about ways to live. Enrique Penaloza, former mayor of Bogota, Colombia.

Cities such as: Bogota, Colombia; Bremen, Germany; and Curitiba, Brazil have become torchbearers of sustainable urban designs by implementing new “die eierlegende Wollmilchsau” mobility system that are sustainable, integrative, and all-inclusive.

The core of these mobility strategies is the idea of creating an intermodal system that uses various means of transport (bus, trains, planes) to reduce the dependence on personal automobile and increase dependence on public transport.

A really remarkable example of this intermodal transportation was implemented by Enrique Penaloza, former mayor of Bogota, Colombia. He was able to reinvent how his city addressed public transportation and not only improved mobility, but in the same time decreased crime and inequality.

The lack of vision of previous political figures and poor allocation of financial resources, had contributed to a degenerative cycle of dispair by they city’s citizens. The lack of infrastructure, jobs, security, equality, and social integration had all led to a diminishing quality of life.

Enrique Penaloza’s vision and belief was that “sustainable urban design can be the foundation for social justice”. According to Penaloza, redesigning the transportation system by restricting car use, improving public systems, expanding bicycle ways and creating public spaces, would be essential in the fight to increase equality to maximize social integration.

Penaloza developed the public transport called TransMilenio, stemming from the idea of going from one millennium to another. This trunk-fed system features exclusive dual bus lines: main lines for the centric routes that are fed into by smaller, articulated bus routes that reach into the outer or less dense regions. This integrated system provides access to all the population – city or suburb, rich or poor, young or old.

Foremost in Penaloza’s vision was not only to bring sustainable mobility to Bogota, but also to bring equality and safety to its citizens. Initially, this budget was created to build highway infrastructures. However, instead of choosing to benefit the 15% of the population that have a car with this plan, he instead favored the majority of the population by using this budget to provide public transportation, public spaces, and pedestrian paths. Three million people are connected through the social fabric of the TransMilenio system, which not only facilitates traffic to and from destinations, but provides space to congregate along the way.

Building a transportation system that benefits the many and not just the few has helped bolster the symbol of democracy. Allowing all residents to use the TransMilenio to reach schools libraries, hospitals, neighborhoods and parks has created richer integration within Bogota’s society, and has helped to reduce crime – ultimately changing peoples’ perceptions of the city and their quality of life.

It’s truly remarkable to see people like Enrique Penaloza, both a visionary and a design thinker, change an entire city by redesigning the public transportation and public spaces. Integrating society through these systems provided people change for the better, and improved the quality of life for the majority.