1. Inception Report
Title: Sustainable Mobility Policies for Lima
By Jessica Tantalean Noriega
With nearly 9 million people living in an area that extends from south to north at about
100 km, and an explosive urban sprawl that continues since early on the second half of the
twentieth century, Lima faces big problems with serious effects on the city‟s mobility.
According to the Transportation Master Plan for Lima, developed by the Japanese
Cooperation in 2005, there are about 16.5 million transport movements: 51% by public
transport, 25% walking and only 0.5% by bicycle. The document also states that if the
required measures are not implemented, the average travel time will increase from 44.9 to
64.8 minutes, C02 emissions will rise by 300% and the average travel speed will decrease
from 16.8 down to 7.5 km per hour in 2025.
Despite the high demand for public transport, the efforts made by the Municipality to
restructure the chaotic existing system, the running and developing Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)
lines (“Metropolitano”) and Lima‟s metropolitan railway (“Metro de Lima”), the evolution
from a street transport to a mobility vision, and a strategic plan for development and
promotion of non-motorized transport, there is still need, and work to be done, to establish
firmly a sustainable urban mobility criteria in the transport governance of the Peruvian
capital.
This gap to be filled leaves us now with pedestrian and public transport mobility and its
related infrastructure and management failing to offer comfort and safety. Lima is the Latin
American city with the highest death rate from road accidents and according to the Ministry
of Transport 4 of every 5 of these deaths is caused to pedestrians. The existing public
transport system is mainly of low capacity (95%), runs in savage commercial competition
(the so-called “penny war”), and units are old, averaging 15 years. Dirty fuels are still being
burned though regulations from the Ministry of Environment are phasing out biodiesel 2 and
introducing biodiesel 5 since 2010. Means that private cars only add 11.5% of travels but the
city has been developing functional to it, giving it priority and seeking its comfort.
Furthermore, Lima suffers from an excessive taxi offer –currently under restructuration by
the Municipality–, and an input of over 150,000 new cars in 2011, and this 2012 will be more
than 300,000.
Therefore, Lima and other Peruvian cities have been developed based on a mobility
model that gives priority to cars over pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users. This
model has not only produced a series of challenging negative social, health, economic and
environmental effects difficult to revert (such as stress, road safety, collisions, air pollution,
car horn abuse, social exclusion, traffic time waste, loss of public space, among others), but
over time this has permeated among the city dwellers, who have assimilated a use as a
symbol of development and success.
The model that benefits private car owner minorities and harms majorities is being
replaced by one that focuses on population needs, responds to society as a whole, and gives
priority to sustainable forms of mobility. This trend is seen in many cities around the world
and in new generations of professionals who have reflected on the negative effects of a car-
based model. Above all, these changes are possible through strong and clear political
decisions. That is why the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima has begun to modify the
priorities considering pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users as key government

2. policies. Within this scenario something specific must be highlighted: cycling is a legitimate
mean of transport in the city, and won‟t develop if not integrated to the other transport modes.
As pointed above, the difficulties and challenges in promoting a green and friendly
transport and associated infrastructure will persist if the public and private organizations and
the citizenship in general are not convinced that they were working with an erratic vision.
After looking and analyzing Lima‟s “reverse” Priorities Pyramid (Fig. 1) we will have to
invest to have a city with sustainable mobility.
Priorities Pyramid
mobility to work within the parameters of Sustainability
ongoing campaign by TNM – MML, 2011.
Caption: Lima for pedestrians, made by pedestrians. What a new mobility system and culture?. Because
gives priority to pedestrians and cyclists. Reduces accidents significantly. A city with fewer cars is a city less
aggressive and less polluted. Improves public space use for all (children, the young, adults, pregnant, seniors
and disabled. Improves life quality making it healthier)
The Municipality of Lima is breeding this vision with many political improvements but
less of the necessary technical easiness that prolongs the time for a beneficial evolution of the
city. This is the reflection of a team whose function is to place non-motorized travels within
the planning and management of a city as shocked as Lima. A multidisciplinary team,
structured, trained in sustainable mobility has been promoting a technical and creative
strategy, with cycling at the frontline, to place Sustainable Mobility the decision table of
Lima‟s planning.

3. This team, the Non-Motorized Transport Special Program of the Metropolitan
Municipality of Lima (TNM-MML), known as CICLOLIMA in social networks, has
captured the attention of the general public and various local and foreign organizations thanks
to its practices economically and socio-environmentally efficient. It has facilitated the
formulation and implementation of various projects by municipal authorities, civil society,
foundations and NGOs, and partners including The Pan-American Health Organization, the
World Bank, Andean Development Corporation, and the Institute for Development Policy
and Transportation of Mexico ITDP, The Clinton Foundation and the C40 group.
Furthermore, we have built alliances with cities through various representatives of
international organizations from different professional fields focusing on sustainable mobility
(Spain, France, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, USA, Denmark, Venezuela, etc.)
The success of this experience follows a sound technical strategy followed by a strong
political will. Regarding infrastructure, maintenance of 83.32% of the existing bike lanes has
been met, which differs much with what was done in previous years with only 2.5%
performed annually. We build several district networks in Lima. First the focus is to feed the
“Metropolitano” BRT axis with 173.5 km of bike lanes, benefiting 12 districts of Lima,
implementing bike parking racks, intermodal facilities in the BRT axis. It‟s very important to
highlight that the TNM-MML acts as a technical inter-municipality coordination agency with
different districts, with the achievement of the co-implementation of the first Free Bike
Service (BLS), a public bicycle service started with the municipality of San Borja.
As education is the most important pillar for development we have consolidated our
School Education Program “BICICOLE” strategic linchpin. In this program road safety,
coexistence and sustainable mobility issues are introduced into school curricula,
complemented with lectures, campaigns and festivals that in 2011 benefited more than 20,000
students, all in coordination and with support from the Ministries of Education and
Environment, universities and private organizations. Likewise, the University Education
Program developed six seminars on "Cities and Sustainable Mobility", where professionals in
urban planning, health, pollution, transport, public space recovery and other specialties
lectured on the importance of sustainable mobility through different thematic. The seminar
trained over 1500 students in 2011. Our “Cyclist Fairs”, “Cycling University Fairs”, and
monthly campaigns have also added to our efforts to sensitize and inform the public about the
benefits of alternative means of transport and to promote a new culture of mobility.

4. We highlighted our achievements in the “First International Forum: „Cities, Bicycles and
the Future of Mobility‟” held in July 2011 with the participation of artist and cycling activist
David Byrne and experts from the Institute of Politics Development and Transportation of
Mexico (ITDP); in the “International Seminar „From Transport to Mobility‟” at the Peruvian
National Library where fourteen speakers from the Netherlands, Denmark, Mexico, Chile,
Colombia, USA, Ecuador, France, India and Venezuela presented experiences with urban
mobility and sustainable transport programs and projects
(www.munlima.gob.pe/seminariomovilidad); and in “Lima‟s Sustainable Mobility Expo
2011” for three days 60 organizations present pedestrian and bicycle mobility, mass transit,
electric vehicles, efficient gas technology, giving different proposals and visions for
improving Lima‟s transport. (www.munlima.gob.pe/expomovilidad). All of these events were
open to the public and free of charge.
In 2011, thanks to the strategy championed by the CICLODIA Program, we established a
recreational weekly bike road day on Arequipa Avenue, helped sustainable mobility and
involved more than 12,000 participants every Sunday. The success of the CICLODIA
program has influenced Peru´s government through Ministry of Health to incorporate in its
Municipal Promotion Plans the implementation of related bike roads in 246 municipalities of
the country, TNM-MML will be responsible for the training workshops through Healthy
Municipalities Network.
All of these actions, aimed at bringing back the sense of citizens pride and enjoyment,
are progressively being replicated/spread in small (and inexpensive efforts) and large scale
project developments. All the acquired experience (information exchange,
problems/solutions) is essential to the mobility and transport development. Combining
concepts, methodologies, and urban planning expertise enables a true ecomobility transport
culture that promotes walking, cycling, public transportation, and reasonable car use to
develop sound urban sustainability.