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.
Dec 5, 2021
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.
Nov 26, 2021
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…
Nov 25, 2021
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…
Nov 25, 2021
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…
Nov 24, 2021
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…
Nov 24, 2021
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…
Nov 23, 2021
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…
Nov 23, 2021
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…
Nov 22, 2021
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…
Nov 22, 2021
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…
Nov 21, 2021
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…
Nov 17, 2021
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…
Nov 9, 2021
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…
Nov 8, 2021
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…
Nov 7, 2021
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…
Nov 6, 2021
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…
Oct 31, 2021
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…
Oct 21, 2021
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.
Oct 20, 2021
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…
Oct 19, 2021
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…
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