On first impressions, one would describe Mexico City as a cityscape oriented to privately-owned cars. Statistics show, however, that the metropolitan area actually depends heavily on public transport and that 81% of all daily journeys are completed by this mode. What the visitor’s impression responds to is use of road space which, almost paradoxically, is almost completely monopolised (95%) by private cars. This contradictory and unsustainable scenario responds to the biases that transport policies have shown since the 1970s, the period during which the city experienced its most rapid demographic and territorial expansion. From this point onwards, Mexico City exploded in size and a road-dominated landscape was consolidated. An entire decade passed without works on the underground railway network, the tramway system was phased out, and priority was given to the construction of roads and car parks that favoured the expansion of individualised forms of private transport. Furthermore, a grid of multi-lane axial roads was built. This grid cut across existing neighbourhoods destroying important parts of the city fabric, and often precipitating their social disintegration as viable urban communities. The emphasis placed on road construction resulted in two important outcomes: it lead to rapid and uncontrolled metropolitan sprawl and, in contradiction to its aim of speeding up automotive transport, it brought about road saturation.

The Mexico City of today faces the challenges of dealing with the legacy of short-sighted transport policies from the past three decades. Car use is still on the rise in the metropolitan area and the occupancy rate is still very low at 1.76 persons per car. The rising trend towards private car use has resulted in an alarming increase in traffic volumes and pollution levels. Originally conceived as the most important form of mass transport and the structuring component of the metropolitan transport infrastructure, the underground has lost relevance over the past years both in terms of its share of total number of trips per person per day and in the absolute number of passengers carried per year. Instead, mini buses have become the backbone of public transport and they account for 60% of all trips in the metropolis. Mini buses represent the least efficient, least safe and one of the most polluting modes of transport. Yet they are the most competitive alternative because of their extended schedules, frequency and coverage throughout the metropolitan area. Additionally, the city suffers from an insufficient and deteriorating pedestrian infrastructure. The current condition of existing roads adds complexity to the task of providing good quality infrastructure for pedestrians and, as they currently stand, roads work as barriers that inhibit pedestrian transit.

It is evident from this situation that there is a pressing need to improve public transport as a sustainable alternative with enough capacity and geographical coverage. However, providing a safer and more efficient public transport network is not only a technical problem. A further barrier to the expansion of public transport is the cultural and class-based preference for private cars. Differences in everyday transport usage reinforce deeply rooted social divisions and segregated practices jeopardise the inherently urban experience of establishing contact, albeit for a brief period of time within one’s daily schedule, with others different from oneself.

Transformed demographics, the increased complexity and relocation of work routines, and the expansion of the metropolitan area itself have had a strong impact on the flows of people and goods within the city. If transport interventions are to remedy the disjointed system in existence and reduce and improve people’s long commutes to work, shopping and entertainment destinations, policy needs to be coordinated at the metropolitan scale. Transport policy needs to be joined-up with land-use and other schemes towards a more coherent territorial structuring of the metropolitan area. If the city is to learn from its past mistakes, these schemes ought to reverse the tendency to build single-use developments that force people to travel large distances. Therefore, improving the existing public transport system is not enough, it is also crucial to better understand the patterns of people’s movements throughout the city and to coordinate transport networks and land-use so that these movements are minimised and successful mixed-use urban quarters are created.

Two contrasting projects embody the divergent courses of action that are being taken by transport policy in Mexico City today. Over the past few years, more than half of the budget allocated to transport was used for road construction, with the most prominent project being a double-decker system of elevated highways over the ring road. On the other hand, with regard to investment on public transport, the most innovative initiative has been the Metrobus, a bus rapid transit system based on the Transmilenio model from Bogotá. The new Metrobus, which replaced over 260 mini buses, consisted of an initial stock of 80 articulated buses covering a distance of 19 kms along the Avenida Insurgentes, a main north-south axis of the city. The buses have a dedicated lane and make predetermined stops at elevated stations from where passengers can board them swiftly, having already paid their fares on the ground. What these two projects show is that transport planning still oscillates between the old biases and current efforts to break with the past and transform Mexico City into a softer city that responds to the needs of the majority of its population who rely on public transport.

Author: Iliana Ortega-Alcazar