Source: La República - Graphic Municipalities with more motorcycle sales in Colombia

 

     With the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country, travel habits changed rapidly without incentive and fear for using public transport affected behaviors used to circulate in the urban area. Coupled with this, the increase in home services to avoid going out on the most rigid days of the confinements promoted a labor sector with several fronts. However, in times of economic reactivation, added to the above factors, the role of intermunicipal/metropolitan public transport in stimulating the use of motorcycles becomes relevant, not only due to variables such as road congestion and employability, but also due to costs that They represent the working class.

 

     The motorcycle today is a means of transport that goes beyond mobility, the motorcycle is a vehicle that serves to work, in this sense from formal employability: companies, workers,  in conjunction with administrative instances should work jointly in the creation ofStrategic road safety plans, with proper driving techniques, vehicle arrangement and use of accessories required to make safe maneuvers (for example, in those companies that carry out courier work, to mention a case).

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     On the other hand, for those who are self-employed or looking for a motorcycle, the local response may be the serious implementation of the motodestrezas program led by the National Road Infrastructure Agency, which serves the sector by teaching techniques to improve driving (braking, acceleration, deceleration). However, from the municipal and departmental administrations the dimension of this reality has not yet been identified.

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     Returning to the starting point of this opinion column, given that in metropolitan environments or transport network fleets are deficient To face the demographic increase and the interdependence relations of intermediate urban nuclei in urban agglomerations, the solution that is gaining ground the most is the use of the motorcycle.

 

     A few days ago on social networks the user @elmotoniko highlighted amotorcycle crashat the La Tebaida tollbooth on the Via Funza-Siberia. This action, which seemed a novelty and strangeness for the user of the social network, is a reflection of what is happening with the motorcycle fleet in the Sabana de Bogotá and in particular in Funza, a municipality that leads the sale of motorcycles in Colombia with a 175.8% rise in sales from January to May, corresponding to a total of 26,431 units.

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    Several reasons can explain why Funza and Soacha are positioned as the municipalities with the highest sales of motorcycles. The demographic increase, labor and educational dependency with other municipalities and the District, and a public transport system that for several years at its peak hours has been operating at full capacity and to which an attempt is being made to respond with short-term and insufficient measures, as is the case of Transmilenio in the municipality of Soacha and as will be Regiotram de Occidente. Linked to transportation fees that represent a direct impact on the finances of families.

 

     For example, if a person travels 5 days a week from Funza, with a rate of $200, only $4. the fleet one day represents $8,400, plus $2,650 for a Transmilenio ticket, the total is $5,300 round trip. In other words, a person uses $13,700 daily to travel between Funza and Bogotá, if that value is multiplied by 5 days, $68,500 invested in transportation is obtained, weekly, which in a month is equivalent to $274,000, almost the amount in which the quota is found. monthly for a motorcycle. Adding that the travel times according to the District Mobility Survey in 2019, in municipalities such as Funza, Mosquera and Madrid are around 90 minutes, which can be reduced by traveling by motorcycle.

 

     Despite the fact that there are no accident rates in the savannah, based on the increase in road accidents Bogotá, where motorcyclists are involved, it is known that the biggest victims of accidents are people under 30 years of age, and their accidents are widely occurring on weekends, between Friday night and Saturday morning. However, as is notable in the savannah, accidents are the daily bread in the corridors that connect with Bogotá, Calle 13 and Calle 80.

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     In recent months we have seen how the Government of Cundinamarca has announced investments in road infrastructure to la Sabana, the road improvements and adaptations do not address this reality of motorcyclists at all, there is no guideline that addresses theUrban and Regional Mobility Conpes, nor the search to promote riders as exclusive corridors for motorcyclists, such as motorways, solo-motorcycle lanes or even the shared motorcycle, there is not even a review of safe speeds in road corridors or bets for redistributing spaces on the roads keeping in mind the various road actors and their levels of vulnerability on the road.  The administrations have little or no interest in addressing this reality in depth that, if it continues like this, in a short time it will represent figures of accidents in the departmental and local roads of the municipalities.

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July 3, 2022