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Good practice Imported

Bogotá's Ciclovía — Weekly Open Streets with Published Cost-Benefit Evidence

Colombia · Bogotá · See the Colombia profile · See the Bogotá profile

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Bogotá closes ~100+ km of streets to cars every Sunday and holiday; a 2011 four-city analysis found $3.23–$4.26 in medical costs saved per $1 spent in Bogotá, at about $6 per resident per year.

Bogotá's Ciclovía — Weekly Open Streets with Published Cost-Benefit Evidence

Details

Promoter
Instituto Distrital de Recreación y Deporte (IDRD), City of Bogotá
Period
Since the 1970s (ongoing)
Keywords
open streets, active mobility, public space, physical activity

Description

Bogotá's Ciclovía opens a network of roads to walkers, cyclists and skaters on Sundays and public holidays (72 days a year), today on a circuit of roughly 100–121 km with attendance reported between 600,000 and 1.4 million people per day.
A peer-reviewed economic analysis of four Ciclovía programmes (Montes et al., Journal of Urban Health, 2011; CDC, WHO, Universidad de los Andes and partners) estimated benefit-cost ratios of 3.23–4.26 for Bogotá, 1.83 for Medellín, 1.23 for Guadalajara and 2.32 for San Francisco, counting direct medical costs only. Annual cost per resident was about US$6 in Bogotá, US$6.50 in Guadalajara, US$23.40 in Medellín and US$70.50 in San Francisco.
Caveats: the benefit figures are modelled from physical-activity and medical-cost assumptions, and the analysis excludes unmeasured gains (social capital, air quality) and any costs to drivers or local traders. Network analyses describe it as a multisectoral, self-organised programme.

Read the full analysis: https://journalistsresource.org/economics/health-benefits-costs-mass-recreational-programs/

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