Cycling Infrastructure in Cities: Bogotá’s Quinto Centenario Cycle Avenue

Cities are key to addressing climate change. To mitigate and adapt to it, however, large investments in sustainable infrastructure are required in sectors such as transport, energy, buildings and waste. New initiatives such as the C40 Cities Finance Facility (CFF) are bridging the gap between cities and finance.

Bogotá is one of the cities receiving technical assistance during the CFF’s first phase. The CFF’s goal is to support a cycling transformation in Bogotá through the development of new, high-quality cycling infrastructure. The city is building on its past efforts and is undertaking an ambitious plan to build new infrastructure. The Quinto Centenario project, a planned, safe and fast cycling avenue, symbolises how Bogotá’s cycling infrastructure will look in the near future.

A new report now covers how the CFF’s assistance has so far helped Bogotá in developing a governance system, scoping the mobilisation of potential financing sources, engaging key local stakeholders such as cycling groups and businesses, and creating a detailed workplan for the Quinto Centenario project. Mayoral leadership and support from the national government have proven crucial in ensuring continued focus.

The city still faces a number of important challenges in implementing the Quinto Centenario project. What Bogotá has done, however, even at this early stage, has already yielded many lessons for other cities wishing to create an appropriate enabling environment for the development of cycling infrastructure.

Upcoming reports on the project’s prefeasibility and feasibility stages and on its financing strategy will provide a complete picture of how Bogotá has worked to implement the Quinto Centenario project throughout the project development phase.