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Bogotá’s open streets program is the oldest and most successful


If you ask a Bogotáno where they learned to ride a bike, they all have the same answer.

On Dec. 15, even before the guardians strung up the yellow Ciclovía-brand caution tape (25 rolls a week, a cheery alternative that ensures the streets do not look like one big police investigation), an army of cyclists converged on Patios, a lung-busting climb into the mountains. In 2005, the Pan-American Health Organization and the United States Centers for Disease Control held a seminar in Bogotá that led to the launch of the Network of Recreational Ciclovías of the Americas, with an annual meeting and a how-to manual. Marcela Guerrero Casas, a Colombian organizer who helped start the open streets event in Cape Town, put it succinctly: “Why is it for 50 years we’ve been cycling on Sunday, and Monday we’re stuck in traffic?”

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