Enrique Peñalosa, Green Party candidate for Bogota mayor, criticizes the project to extend the TransMilenio bus system to Carrera Septima, RCN Radio reports Wednesday.
The candidate said that halting the project to build a TransMilenio route along one of Bogota’s main roads would be a great favor from the city to its people.
TransMilenio is the capital’s metropolitan transportation network, and Peñalosa himself presiding over its initial construction in 1998 while he was mayor of the city.
The construction of a new route through Carrera Septima, however, has faced various problems since being suggested in 2007 and has been criticized for the visual pollution that it would cause.
Peñalosa said that if there are enough resources he would like to build a metro system, although he maintained that other systems of transport need to be discussed.
Talking about his intentions if he wins the mayorship, he said that “urban security has to have the same priority that democratic security has had in rural zones.”
With regard to the security of the capital’s children, he proposed the creation of parks, as well as re-enforcing security in schools, particularly in the areas where there are risks of gangs being formed.