Bogotá is the fourth city with the worst trancons in the world

The most recent study, published by Traffic Index, by the Dutch geolocation platform TomTom, shows that Bogotá people spend more than 55% of their time on their daily journeys. This, to put it in practical terms, means that in a 60-minute journey it became one of 93.

In at least one minute of travel time increased traffic in Bogotá during 2021, the level of congestion is more than 50%, which meant a change of 2% compared to 2020.

The district administration in Cabezada by Mayor Claudia López, has this topic in frequent discussion, sometimes delegating blame to the public as when she said that “it is parents who choose to put their children in a school that is two hours away from home”, noting that one of the factors of traffic congestion in the north of Bogotá was the massive presence of school routes in the sector.

Proposals such as the peak and plaque all day, restriction by time slots to access Bogotá on holiday bridges, among others; have tried to improve the mobility situation in the capital, which is collapsed by multiple factors such as infrastructure works and improvement of the road network; for example: the construction of the first line of the Metro, plugging more than 34,000 holes, adaptation and construction of TransMilenio trunks, among others. There are about 500 works that are currently being advanced.

During the public accountability hearing of the District Secretariat for Mobility (SDM) and its affiliated and related entities, its secretary Felipe Ramírez Buitrago assured that in the face of this situation and the works being carried out in Bogotá, citizens will have to change their mobility habits.

Traffic Index pointed out in its report that Istanbul, Turkey, is the city that leads this ranking with 142 hours lost per year, followed by Moscow, the capital of Russia, which loses 140 and Kiev, in Ukraine, with 128 places that surpass Bogota and complete the top 3 ranking. A total of 404 cities from 58 countries were analyzed during 2021, for the development of this study.

A curious fact is that worldwide traffic decreased by 10% compared to 2019 figures, before the COVID-19 pandemic began, in fact, there was a 19% reduction in peak hours.

Other South American cities in the ranking are Lima, capital of Peru, with a loss of 96 hours per year, ranking 19th on the list, Recife, in Brazil, where 92 hours are lost and ranked 24th and Santiago de Chile with 89 hours is ranked 26th in the world.

In contrast, the cities in the region with the least traffic congestion are Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, where only 34 hours per year are spent and ranked 339, then Montevideo in Uruguay, ranked 185th and with 50 hours wasted on traffic and Curitiba, also in Brazil, with 55 hours per year. Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, is the last in the ranking with only 16 hours lost per year.

The figures in Bogotá could worsen in the coming days, with the arrival of more vehicles caused by the skyrocketing purchase of cars, as well as other road closures to be announced in the coming days.

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