Editor’s Letter: Transportation
Bridges. Highways. Tunnels. Buses. Trains. Subways. Transmilenio. Transcable. When I first started working on this issue of ReVista on Transportation (Volume XXI, No. I), I imagined transportation as infrastructure.
Category: Transportation
Modernity in Black and White
For years, one of my favorite pieces in the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA) was the iconic Abaporu (1928), by Brazilian artist Tarsila do Amaral: a canvas…
Transportation Itself Does Not Build Urban Structures
English + Español
Fina Rojas lives in the 19 de Abril at Petare, the densest and one of the largest self-produced neighborhoods in Latin America. Most researchers and policymakers define self-produced neighborhoods as “informal settlements.” However, these settlements occur from…
La Güera Rodríguez
By now, history has added a layer to the many ironies that Brandeis historian Silvia Arrom highlights in her spirited book about a controversial historical figure. The recent irony is…
Authoritarian Police in Democracy
This deeply researched book suggests to its reader a truly tragic paradox: the possibility that under certain conditions, democratic institutions and processes may undermine rather than strengthen the rule of law. Building on grounded…
Improving Public Transport
The voices of young males yelling the destination of their combis woke me up early every morning while I lived in La Paz (Bolivia) for a couple of months in the mid-1990s. I did not need an alarm clock. These people yelled in loud voices to inform prospective passengers…
Getting from Here to There
English + Español
Passengers scramble for buses in Bogotá and climb aboard the speedy but crowded public transport system that traverses this sprawling city of seven million people, the capital of Colombia. Cyclists whiz by in designated lanes and taxis move from here to there in what seem…
The Brazilian Military’s Role in Public Security
On Sunday April 7, 2019, a 46-year-old private security guard and musician by the name of Evaldo Rosa dos Santos was driving his wife Luciana, seven-year-old son Davi…
Surviving Mexico
Mexico is by far the most dangerous country for journalists to work in the Americas, and routinely hovers near the top of the world’s most dangerous, competing with countries like Iraq which are active war zones. Since 2000, 145 journalists have been killed in Mexico for…
Evasions
English + Español
I can’t get the image out of my mind. A teenager dressed in her school uniform perched on a Metro turnstile and looked out at the crowd, projecting the proud attitude that she could…
A New Way to Participate in Mexico City’s Urban Planning
Former Mexican Senator Citlalli Hernández, who at the time had just been elected as a local congressperson, was protesting the construction of a .06 mile highway underpass in Mexico City with some of her constituents. Their concerns were environmental, notably the removal of nearly 1,700 trees…
Between Protest and the New Constitution
English + Español
Friday, October 18, the date on which Santiago de Chile “exploded,” I couldn’t get back home on public transportation, as I usually do. The Santiago Metro, in response to the protests of students and other citizens against its fare increase, shut down at rush hour, which caused…
Useful Relics
English + Español
In the Colombian village where I grew up, the most common way to tell the time was seeing Don Noé’s chiva going up and down the road. A short and colorful bus with a wooden body, it connected the local peasants with the town of Sonsón for more than thirty years…
From Inroads to Transportation
Early Amazonian trade and transportation generally floated along the vast lower riverine system or was trekked on backs across many rapidly moving headwaters. In the mid- to late- 20th century, the first roads opened, leading largely to resource extraction, not…
Rural Roads in Peru
English + Español
In the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, the rainy season—three months a year—ruins the access to a rudimentary local road. The villagers of Masisea, near Pucallpa, couldn’t leave. Outside…
The Challenges of Rural Transportation in Mexico
English + Español
I remember my first encounter with rural transportation. I’d left my job in the Secretariat of Urban Development and Ecology of the Mexican federal government, and founded a nonprofit civil association, together with some colleagues I’d met through that job…
New Mobility Paradigms and the Equity Question
As you walk through the streets of Mexico City, you are greeted by a symphony of street vendors and musicians, the delectable aroma of grilled elotes and tamales, expansive plazas made up of iconic art and architecture, and an energy that pulsates at all hours of the day…
The Collapsing of Line 12 of the Mexico City Metro
English + Español
I was born and raised in Mexico City (formerly known as the Distrito Federal, until someone had the really good idea of calling it by its most commonly used name) and as a Mexico City native, or chilango, I have always been fascinated by the metro.
Crossing Paths
Human mobility often comes at the expense of the landscape and the nonhuman. Roads and transportation systems intensify habitat fragmentation. Toxins from the road materials leach into the soil. Animals (of the nonhuman sort) are killed by collision with automobiles…
The Transformation of Carrera Séptima into Bogotá’s first Green Corridor
English + Español
When we discuss Bogotá—and Colombia—we need to talk about Carrera Séptima, literally Seventh Avenue, winding through the city like the Reforma in Mexico or Broadway in…
