No one goes there anymore, it's too crowded.

Cablebús Línea 1 from Cuautepec to Indios Verdes. CDMX.

Recently, when the chance came to come back to Mexico City (CDMX) for an extended period of time, I jumped at it. Few places I have been boast the vitality and creative energy that I find here. Being back in CDMX with its 22 million residents has also brought to mind Yogi Berra's famous quip when asked whether he was interested in having dinner at a well-regarded restaurant. 

”No one goes there anymore, it's too crowded.” 

I can't tell you how long I have waited to use that line in anything other than a dad joke. 

For all the terrific mass transportation options that make up CDMX's movilidad integrada (integrated mobility system), there sometimes seem to be a half-dozen or more riders for every seat in the extensive system. In other words, as reliable as transportation is in CDMX, and as varied as the modes of transportation that make up the system, it also tends to be quite crowded during the extended morning and evening rush hours. But that can be a good thing. It's safer when the Metro, Metrobús, Trolebús, Cablebús, Trén Ligero, and every other imaginable form of movilidad integrada is hopping with riders. Lots of riders, policing, security cameras and train cars and special sections on the buses reserved for women and children, help keep the bad hombres from doing their thing.

Yeah, Yeah, Congestion Pricing

Of course, even here, New York is never far from my thoughts. Contemplating congestion and traffic in NYC from afar, I perked up recently when I read a social media post relating that the writer was jonesing for the arrival of congestion pricing in NYC. The epiphany had come to him while sitting on a bus crawling through traffic on the Upper East Side.

I am also excited about congestion pricing's belated arrival. But one should not hold one's breath that it will mean traffic will magically evaporate. Even after the New York Governor's somewhat emasculated tolling program goes into effect in January, NYC commuters will still be handicapped by a bus system that by and large plies the streets like all of New York's other modes of motorized transportation. New York, after all, isn't CDMX which long ago made the smart and widespread commitment to true Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in the form of Metrobús.

Metrobús means bus-only lanes, frequent service, center lane boarding platforms and all door boarding. Metrobús Durango, Insurgentes, CDMX.

Center lane Metrobús platforms facilitate faster all-door boarding of frequently arriving buses.

Metrobús and bus-only lanes even work on smaller streets like here at Mercado Presidente Abelardo L. Rodriguez in La Merced, CDMX.

Still, even in CDMX, to see what happens when you don't create bus only lanes everywhere they are needed, just ride one of the thousands of smaller buses or colectivos peseros (small passenger vans) that use the streets and highways like every other driver in CDMX.

Where Am I?

For this extended stay, I am based in Roma Norte, Cuauhtémoc, just south of Metro Chapultepec. Lucky me. I like this area because of its access to Bosque de Chapultepec (Central Park on steroids), the countless Ecobici (CDMX's bike share program) docks in Roma and adjacent La Condesa, Juárez, Roma Sur and Doctores, and proximity to the weekly ciclovía (muévete en bici) open streets event held every Sunday on Reforma, one of CDMX's grand boulevards. Personally, Metro Chapultepec's closure for renovations is a minor inconvenience, leaving me more dependent on local buses and Metrobús and Ecobici than I have been in the past. I am now for instance a regular on the bus from Chapultepec to Bosques de las Lomas where I can easily find the arracadas árabes con ajonjolí and jocoque that have become staples of my diet here when I am not eating tacos, volcanes, gringas, gorditas and everything else that makes life better in Tacolandia. For the uninitiated that's like traveling from upper Manhattan to Flushing for soup dumplings or Little Guyana for doubles.

It is usually standing room only on the bus from Chapultepec to Bosques.

The bus to Bosques, a reliable workhorse of a smaller bus, is typically packed whenever I ride it, but without the edge that seems to inevitably accompany crowded buses and trains in NYC.

There is also a line for the bus from Bosques de las Lomas back to Chapultepec.

Mansplaining Public Transportation to North America: BRTs are Part of the Solution

I must sound to some like a broken record. Am I arguing in this post against congestion pricing? Of course not! New York needs congestion pricing as soon as possible. But it also needs center lane BRTs, all door bus boarding, many more dedicated bus-only lanes and real traffic enforcement to make it worthwhile, and frequent service that moves people fast and efficiently at a lower cost that the $1 billion to $2 billion per mile for subway tunneling the MTA routinely delivers giftwrapped to its contractors.

True, NYC isn't CDMX, but that doesn't mean that Latin American-style BRTs can't work in North America's best city and countless other traffic choked regions north of the Río Grande.

Soy eléctrico - a true center lane high-capacity electric BRT and its bus-only lane. Metrobús Balderas, CDMX.

Yeah, yeah, I know that it's cooler in the winter months in New York than it is here in CDMX. So how would it be waiting on the center lane station platforms on 5th and 6th Avenues, Fordham Road or Queens Blvd? Not as cold as standing on the elevated platform waiting for the 7 Train in Queens, the D Train in Bensonhurst or the 4 Train at Kingsbridge Avenue in El Bronx. That's what down and polar fleece, a scarf, hat and gloves are for.

Another good thing about all-door boarding at center lane BRT stations is that the station obviates the need for an army of fare enforcement workers along the bus route. In CDMX, a single guard at the station turnstile handles the job of making sure riders pay the fare with their movilidad integrada card. OK, in NYC the transit worker will probably need to be packing heat but that will still cost taxpayers less than the overtime-loving phalanx of transit officers watching for riders jumping the turnstile at 145th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue near my apartment and at countless other NYC transit stations.

Segundo Piso del Anillo Periférico

Unlike earlier trips to CDMX, I am also spending more time in friends' cars this time around. This has introduced me to the Segundo Piso del Anillo Periférico, a sort of Blade Runner-esque double decker toll road that has transformed the landscape wherever these secondary toll roads have appeared.

Double-decker highways are common in earthquake-prone CDMX.

Being on the elevated toll roads on holidays or off hours can be odd as you whiz past what are often the midsection of newer, taller buildings or the tops of smaller buildings. How I would hate to have lost my light and air when the toll road was built in the name of progress. Though I feel guilty riding as a passenger on the Segundo Piso, they work, and the tolls do enrich the city, as well as the private vendors who built them.

Bad Hombres?

For all the U.S. president–elect's endearing talk of Mexicans as bad hombres, on the whole, transit riders in CDMX, and Chilangos generally are polite and patient, if tired from what for many can be two hour or more daily commutes. In the month plus I have been here as well as on prior visits, I haven't missed the dodgy characters on the MTA's subway platforms and trains once. Maybe the geniuses at Project 2025 have it all wrong? Maybe it would make more sense to open the borders to hungry-for-work migrants and get behind giving New York and North America's other traffic choked cities the safe, lower-cost-to-build, efficient, fast and increasingly électrico BRT and Cablebús lines one finds here.

The sun is setting on the old way of delivering the public amenity of mass transportation in traffic choked cities. Rather than do things the way they always have and expect a different result, North American cities would do well to look to CDMX and other innovative Latin American cities when updating their transportation systems. This new mindset will require bold civic leadership and changes in the way public transportation is built and delivered in North America. That is a good thing. Public transportation projects don't need to be prohibitively expensive. As traffic worsens, doing nothing about congestion is not an option. How that money from whatever source is spent and how innovative we are spending it however is a choice.

Yours in transit,

Joel

Joel Epstein is a New Yorker and an advocate for public transit, livable cities and public space.

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