Today You Don't Drive

Mexico City is one of several cities currently operating a license plate rationing strategy for transportation demand management. This has been predominantly a mechanism used in Latin American cities, including Bogota and Sao Paolo. License plate rationing is when access to certain areas--usually downtown cores--is restricted by the plate numbers on vehicles. For example, on Mondays cars with plates that end in a 5 or 6 cannot enter downtown. This policy is meant to primarily improve air quality, but also limit congestion and increase transit ridership. 

Shifting Away from Automobilities

As we've covered previously, Mexico City has experienced dramatic change over the last five years to its transportation system. Long regarded as one of the worst commuter cities in the world, Mexico City has seen such growth that they received the 2012 Sustainable Transport Award from the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). This can be attributed to the city's system-wide shift away from automobility planning towards a multimodal approach emphasizing transit and active transportation options.

Mexico City: Land Use and TODs

Mexico City will have 12 million more inhabitants within the urban city by 2030. This intense growth projection has made transit oriented development a desired form of land use planning. Unfortunately, the capital city has unique and difficult land use laws that make TOD type policies difficult to implement. Since 2009, NGOs have been working with regional and local governments to begin the discussion and potential implementation of “Desarrollo Orientado al Transporte Sustentable (DOTS)”

The outer edges of Mexico City

Transportation Equity on the Urban Periphery

Transportation equity issues take a much different form in much of Latin American than it does in the United States. Mexico City is a strong example of this. Unlike U.S. cities that have experienced significant decline in their centers while the suburbs have flourished, Mexico City’s periphery is a region of impoverished and underserved populations. This periphery has been growing much faster than the rest of the city as people from the city and the countryside drawn to Mexico City for its inherent economic opportunities, but cannot afford to live in the city itself. 

Mexico City's Plan Verde

Mexico City’s Plan Verde (Green Plan), launched in 2007, got one of the largest and most polluted cities in the world to lower their greenhouse gas emission by 6.28 tons between 2008 and 2011. The capital city received massive acclaim when they proposed to lower their greenhouse gases by 7 million metric tons by 2012. Nearly to their goal in 2011, the city continues to introduce measure to lower GHG emission, reduce traffic and preserve water.

A New Way to Raise Awareness for Pedestrian Safety

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Carsharing in Mexico City

As cities look to combat congestion and increase capacity without actually increasing capacity, carsharing and carpooling have become popular options and in Mexico City, it's finally catching on.

The Complexity of Transportation Finance in Mexico City

Mexico has a unique history when it comes to transportation finance. As the 6^th largest crude oil producer in the world, Mexico’s relationship to gasoline is complicated. The state-owned gasoline monopoly, Pemex, controls all pricing of fossil fuel, which includes subsidizing the purchase of refined gas. Looking at Mexico City, the capital of the country, we discover a complex and confusing taxing system that promotes car use through gas subsidies, free parking and little to no government transparency. Recently, things have begun to change throughout the state, causing drastic improvements to congestion, carbon emission and transit use.

One of the many round intersections in Mexico City