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(Del Orlando Sentinel, 2-25-99)
Bogota
gladly puts autos aside BOGOTA,
Colombia - Residents of Bogota went to work on bicycles, roller-skates and even
horse-drawn carriages Thursday as the city observed a daylong ban on the use of
private cars as part of an environmental awareness
program. The
city's pot-holed streets were still clogged with more than 73,000 buses and
taxis. And delivery trucks and other commercial vehicles were exempted from the
ban, along with the ubiquitous bulletproof limousines and all-terrain vehicles
that diplomats and the country's wealthy elite use for travel in the capital of
more than 6 million people. But
a festive atmosphere reigned nonetheless as residents of the city - where an
average of nearly 1,100 people are killed in traffic accidents yearly -
celebrated that an estimated 665,600 private cars had been pulled off the
streets, at least for a day. Most
of the traffic fatalities in Bogota involve pedestrians, who are run down at a
rate that would be considered intolerable in most cities around the
globe. To
show their support for the car ban, many Bogotanos rejected the use of
motor-driven transport altogether and opted for bikes, in-line skates,
skateboards and even horses to get to and from work or
school. They
packed dedicated cycle routes, set up across the city, or wove in and out of
traffic, where many of Bogota's ancient, lumbering buses appeared virtually
empty as they belched out thick columns of exhaust.
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