A Mis Amigos del Norte

Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos.

I have been busy lately with visitors from the United States. Between the harsh winter and the country’s even harsher slide into chaos and disorder, it makes sense. It seems for all of the visitors, Mexico City was a welcome reprieve from the insanity we are all enduring.

As always it has been fun to show people around my adopted city, CDMX, on foot, bike, bus, Metro and Cablebús. To see them embrace this great city and its culture, art, transportation and food has been terrific and validating. At the end of the day, I love large cities and CDMX is among the world’s greatest.

Economic disparities abound in the capital and throughout México but so do encouraging signs of the country’s commitment to equity, sustainability, clean, integrated public transportation and to reducing dependence on petroleum. While the U.S. president drives a stake into the U.S. EV and clean tech markets, Chinese and Korean EVs abound here as do solar panels and stands of trees planted everywhere to clean the air.

El Insurgente, Tren Interurbano México–Toluca.

The completion of the Tren Insurgente from Toluca to Metro Observatorio in CDMX is another sign of the government’s commitment to sustainable, clean transportation.

So close, and yet so far from El Dorito in Las Lomas, a wealthy enclave by any country’s standards. Mexicans recognize the value in anything recyclable or reusable. The U.S. has so much to learn from its neighbor to the south.

I am at my happiest heading down a street or through a park or building knowing, or not knowing, what awaits around the next corner. As a walker in the city, I find that Mexico City never fails to surprise and often delight.

Being here one can’t be oblivious to the realities of gentrification in La Condesa and Roma, Colonia Juárez, Escandón and elsewhere, but this is still not Venice or Paris or Bilbao and hopefully never will be. For one, CDMX is far from the seas so cruise ships filled with the worst sorts of tourists cannot get near the place. Mexico City is also so big that tourism while a bane to local residents in some locales, will never truly overwhelm the city of an estimated 22 million residents.

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.

Other barriers to Mexico City suffering the Bilbao effect created by the opening of architect Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao Museum include fear, especially for North Americans fed an endless chorro of lies about how dangerous it is here. Similarly Spanish, which keeps away those afraid to try and learn anything other than English, the native language of Jesus (according to some), is another obstacle.

Whatever the reason, I feel like a kid in a candy store here in México. On any given day I can travel unimpeded to any far-off corner of the city on foot, bike, Metro, bus, Cablebús, (a rare) Uber or some combination of all of the above. Sure, as in other world-class cities, the trains and buses and streets are packed at rush hour but that is the beauty of riding the Metro or Metrobús or riding an Ecobici rather than driving or taking an Uber or taxi.

Mercado de Jamaica.

On Saturday, for example, I took B, a friend from Brooklyn, in the early morning to the Mercado de Jamaica, the flower market, for a look around. I am not sure which he liked more, the mercado or the tlacoyos, a pre-Colombian specialty, we devoured for breakfast afterwards.

Where’s Waldo?

Two hours in total and we were the only gringos in sight (though I prefer to be called güero even when S or J calls me el güero terco (the stubborn fair-haired guy) to capture my widely recognized and acknowledged obstinance.

Mercado de Jamaica.

Please don’t go there but the Mercado de Jamaica is sort of place I can go back to regularly.

Movilidad Integrada

After breakfast, we took the Metro to Constitucíon de 1917 to hop on La Línea 2 del Cablebús to head up into the mountains towards Santa Marta. A massive transit hub on the eastern edge of Iztapalapa, Constitucíon de 1917 station boasts Metro Línea 8, El Centro de Transferencia Modal (CETRAM) Constitución de 1917 (a huge bus station), Cablebús Línea 2 and Trolebús Elevado, a modern Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system the likes of which, at this rate, the United States won’t be building for a half century or more.

The view from Cablebús Línea 2.

While what I see is not always pretty, it is always fascinating.

Coming upon a pack of feral dogs near the Cablebús stop in Xalpa.

Admittedly, necessity is the mother of invention and massive Mexico City is the mother of transportation innovation and movilidad integrada (integrated transportation).

To my colleagues and friends in North America, it is time to look again at the proven solutions that are being implemented daily in CDMX and in cities like Bogotá. Yes, I am talking to you, Mike Flynn and Janno Lieber, at the MTA.

And dios mío, stop sucking on the pipe of Exxon, Mobil and Chevron and the corrupt haters currently in charge in Washington!

Yours in transit,

Joel

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