Bogotá’s open streets program is the oldest and most successful | Hacker News Reader

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

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54 pointsrntn9 comments

Photos still look pretty grim, due to the car infrastructure, and the lack of foot infrastructure, but I'm guessing cars would be grimmer.

For part of the year, one "parkway" along the river here (actually used like a congested highway) is closed off to cars for part of one weekend day. Without cars, it's great with walkers, bicyclers, families. Even though there's no amenities for people on foot, it's still much nicer than the people-hostile monstrosity that's normally operating there. I can only imagine if it was a park area designed for foot&bikes, with all the businesses and such oriented around that.

But I just heard good-sounding news, about part of it (mainly next to Harvard): https://mass.streetsblog.org/2024/12/13/dcr-will-start-teari...

In Los Angeles we call it CicLAvia. It's a rolling party and riding on streets that are normally bike unfriendly is great. It's crazy the perspective difference between biking vs driving through the city. I highly recommend it.

City: Bogotá

"Open": Opens its streets to cyclists, skaters, pedestrians every Sunday.

it's called a "ciclovía" and it's popular in Los Angeles and many other places.

Bogotá is generally a fairly dismal city, but taking the card off some streets turns into a joyful festival...

Biased comment from a local: I don't think it's dismal at all.

Unsafe depending on zone, bad traffic and rainy. Those are it's main faults. But it has many advantages.

But you can get most anywhere worth going in a bike, and practically the whole city has amenities within walking distance, so traffic is a non-issue for many.

It offers an amazing cost-effectiveness to quality of living. It costs 1/3rd of NYC to live here (cheapest large city in the Americas), and you get a huge cosmopolitan deal out of it.

The cultural offer is amazing, particularly restaurants but there's plenty of concerts, festivals, theatre and more to attend all year.

People are friendly and welcoming (except in traffic, it really brings out the worse)

Only thing I really don't like about it is not feeling safe in many parts, with the largest risk being getting your phone snatched.

I liked it a lot as well, but do remember it being gloomy most of the time.

I loved my brief time in Bogota - was passes as generic art in shops is better than fine art in galleries in the US. Excellent coffee, genuinely happy people that care more about family than the grind. Tamals are freaking bueno too and way better than Mexican tamales.

I wonder how many of the enthusiastic participants, if the event hadn't existed yet and would be proposed now, would actually oppose it. Sometimes change is hard.

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