^Blog Enrique Peñalosa Featured in The New York Times Magazine

In 2006, Cascadia Center co-sponsored an event, “A New Vision for Developing Transit for Livable Cities,” which featured Enrique Peñalosa. This weekend, the estimable The New York Times Magazine, featured Peñalosa in its “Questions For” column.

Q: As a former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, who won wide praise for making the city a model of enlightened planning, you have lately been hired by officials intent on building world-class cities, especially in Asia and the developing world. What is the first thing you tell them? In developing-world cities, the majority of people don’t have cars, so I will say, when you construct a good sidewalk, you are constructing democracy. A sidewalk is a symbol of equality.

When the former Bogotá, Columbia, mayor and Bus Rapid Transit proponent spoke in Seattle, he focused on his city’s implementation of the TransMilenio Bus Rapid Transit system. King County voted to implement a Bus Rapid Transit program not long after our event in 2006.
If you have the time, Deborah Solomon’s brief one-page interview is interesting and certainly worth a few minutes. Whether you agree with him or not, Peñalosa is always thought-provoking. And it’s good to see that The New York Times Magazine’s editorial team sees value, as we did nearly two years ago, in hearing (and sharing) what Peñalosa has to say.