Note – Metro news editor Nick Christensen recently traveled to Mexico City for rest, relaxation and an escape from Stumptown. Within 12 hours of arriving, he found himself surrounded by bicycles and Occupy protesters.
To describe movement here as chaotic would be an understatement.
The city's subway is packed like straw in a hay bale; riders make room for themselves where none seems to exist. Highways are deluged with cars, and lane markers are a mere recommendation.
But on Sundays, a city addicted to moving quickly takes a 46-mile break. El DF's main thoroughfare, Paseo de la Reforma, and other streets throughout the metropolis are shut for Ciclovia, a respite from the bedlam of the daily commute.
Takeaways
One-off observations in Mexico City:
Baselines
It seemed like every building was mixed-use, with shops on the first floor and residences upstairs. Forget "20-minute neighborhoods," residents have most of what they need within blocks of their doors.
Mobility
It wasn't as hard as I'd imagined to fight through crowded pedestrian areas. Part of that was because of wide sidewalks, and even some ped-only areas. A fast-moving transit system with stops that aren't too close together gets people around quickly. Walking was often faster than driving.
Cycling
Sure, Mexico City is trying, and there were plenty of folks out at Ciclovia. But, compared to Portland at least, it was rare to see someone on a weekday actually using a bicycle, despite omnipresent, inexpensive bike rental opportunities in the city center.
The donut ring
Central Mexico City was dominated by middle- and upper-class individuals, decent shops and restaurants and homes. But outside of the city's core was a ring of lower-class dwellings, ramshackle out of cinder blocks with water tanks on their roofs. It made me think of how areas like Aloha and Rockwood have struggled as central Portland has escaped from the malaise of the 1980s and 90s.
Footprint
In terms of physical distance from the city center to the edge of the suburbs, Mexico City is no larger than Portland. It has 10 times as many residents.
- Nick Christensen
It's part of an omnipresent push for more cycling in Mexico's capital, and a broader movement across the western hemisphere to use bicycles as a tool for community building.
"It's getting that cycling culture built in," said Grant Cogswell, a bookstore owner in the city's Roma neighborhood, and a former transportation advocate in the Puget Sound area.
How is it that in this choking city of 22 million where cars are king, so many highways can be closed so often for bike traffic? And why is Portland limited to just five of the events every year?
A different organizational structure helps Ciclovias across Latin American prosper, said Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder.
Burkholder was in Medellin, Colombia, last week, attending an international Ciclovia conference and being honored as a Global Ciclovia Ambassador. He said it's easier to come by volunteers for Ciclovia in Latin American countries, where civic service is a required part of a college education.
Plus, when it comes to getting police to sign on, "The mayor says do it, and the police do it," Burkholder said.
By comparison, the Portland Bureau of Transportation spent nearly $150,000 on traffic control for its five Sunday Parkways in 2010, about 40 percent of the program's total budget.
"Cops for some reason feel like nobody else can control traffic, and I don't know if that's a legal thing or if they're saying 'That's just our job and we're not going to use volunteers,'" Burkholder said.
Culturally, there's an accepted need for the Ciclovias in Latin America, Burkholder said. Countries that have been dealing with civil war for decades, he said, have an incentive to encourage human-scale interactions in diverse neighborhoods across the city.
The non-cycling public doesn't seem to mind Ciclovia, Cogswell said. The trappings of living in a massive national capital, like protests, dignitary visits and other obstructions, are just part of daily life.
"They don't flinch at that. They're like 'Oh, cool, bicycles,'" he said.
This isn't to say those Latin American cities that host frequent, massive Ciclovias have turned into bike riding Shangri-Las.
"During the week it's death on the road," Burkholder said, pointing to a trip he made to Lima, Peru, where the safest place to ride on the bike was on the centerline of the highway – because drivers would unexpectedly pull into the bike lanes to pass.
"Their bike facilities have to be separated cyclepaths, because otherwise, they're killed," Burkholder said.
Cogswell said that chaos, in a way, makes cycling safer, at least in Mexico City.
"It's probably safer here, than riding in a big city in the United States, because people have their eyes open because people do crazy (stuff)," Cogswell said. "On the other hand, people do crazy (stuff)."