Global policies for moving cities: the role of think tanks in the proliferation of Bus Rapid Transit systems in Latin America and worldwide

Abstract

Implementation in the late nineties of Transmilenio, a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) based transportation policy in Bogotá (Colombia), marked an inflection milestone for the replication processes of such urban transportation policies. Multiple actors and actions brought the Transmilenio model to numerous cities worldwide, first replicated in other Colombian and Latin American cities later it reached Turkey, China and India and then spread all over the world. This article explores the role of think tanks steering and promoting BRT policies during complexes processes and interactions of power among multiple scales. In doing so, the article situates itself within the research arenas studying linkages between local interests, demands and needs and the global neoliberal allocation of capital and expertise via consulting, advising commerce and construction activities. I argue that BRT promotion think tanks have emerged as powerful mechanisms mobilizing specific transportation policies acting as facilitators of movements via 'policy translators', promoters and network developers among the plethora of actors and interests. Methodology utilized is based on data from policy reports, archives and in-depth interviews exploring networked interactions while tracing linkages between think tanks and policy actors and observing knowledge dissemination arenas. This research contributes to the exploration of urban transportation epistemic communities and its role in urban change under a neoliberal global context and underlines the role of emerging policies from the south that permeate global policy arenas, traditionally dominated by actors from developed economies and discusses the mediation of global north institutions in the global south urban policy mobilities landscape.

A posteriori comparisons, repeated instances and urban policy mobilities: What ‘best practices’ leave behind

“…It portrayed the city not as the traditional capital of violence and drug trafficking, à la Narcos , the Netflix TV show, but rather as a city in transformation, replete with modern rapid buses and bicyclists. From all the reforms and policies experimented with in Bogotá in the last decades, two programmes have been particularly referenced and adopted by hundreds of other cities: Transmilenio , Bogotá’s famous Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system (Hidalgo and Gutiérrez, 2013; Silva Ardila, 2020), and Ciclovía , a 70-mile weekly street closure programme to promote urban biking and physical activity (Sarmiento et al, 2017). Interestingly, other successful reforms and programmes experimented in Bogotá in the 1990s, including innovative ways of increasing urban tax collection or the promotion of urban citizenship, have not been so mobile and have hardly been replicated in other cities.…”

“…The rapid and global spread of Bogotá’s Transmilenio BRT system and Ciclovía became part of an increasing emphasis among international development banks and global philanthropy on urban policy solutions to intervene in global climate change through their replication in as many cities as possible (Montero, 2020). Thus, while Bogotá has often been presented as a case of Southern policy innovation and South-South policy transfer, it was the collaboration between North and South experts and organisations that allowed Bogotá policies to travel as part of this transnational network of experts and practitioners (Silva Ardila, 2020; Sosa-López and Montero, 2018).…”

On BRT Spread around the World: Analysis of Some Particular Cities

“…The success of TransMilenio is related to the optimal outcomes in terms of profits during the first years that covered the expenses of planning and service provision easily with privately-operated buses. Such advantages led to the implementation of other interesting BRT systems in Colombia, like the one in Barranquilla [20,21]. This metropolitan area had significant urban segregation and inequality that also affected the transportation systems ( Figure 7).…”

Transnational circuits of policy knowledge and discursive migration. The formation and transformation of planning policies in Argentina

“…This literature has allowed us to overcome the consideration of the Global North as the only reference from which policy solutions emanate (Porto De Oliveira et al, 2019). Latin American researchers have been particularly prolific in this regard, like Osorio Gonnet (2015) in Chile; Milhorance (2014, 2016, 2018, 2020) in Brasil; Montero (2017a, b, c) and Silva Ardila (2020) in Colombia and, from Mexico, Pacheco Vega (2012). However, in spite of this profusion, the North continues to be looked at when it comes to valuing intellectual authority and professional expertise, legitimating normative standards, identifying key notions and selecting transferable policy models (Dezalay and Garth, 2002; Friedmann, 2011).…”