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Urban areas encompass essential social functions that are fundamental for the development and quality of life. This research explores why the concept of the 15-minute city, while commendable in its aspirations, might fall short in effectively mitigating urban inequalities, especially within densely populated and segregated developing cities. Using Bogotá (Colombia) as a case study, this paper advocates and develops a standardized index based on the availability of essential urban functions within a 15-minute walking distance. This index also integrates individual preferences, geographical attributes, and the quality of pedestrian infrastructure. Doing so provides a more comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing proximity, accommodating the diverse needs of various social identities. Considering individual preferences towards proximity is critical to comprehend the determinants of accessibility, encompassing the relevance of sociodemographic characteristics. Although several urban areas worldwide may meet the broad interpretation of the 15-minute city concept, our research reveals significant disparities among population segments regarding access to urban services and their prioritization. Our case study found that grocery stores and healthcare facilities hold paramount importance across all population segments. Furthermore, wealthy segments exhibit a heightened preference for retail shops and commercial services. In contrast, the low-income population has a considerably greater preference for healthcare facilities. This study aims to cast light upon structural disparities inherent in urban areas, thereby unveiling inequalities in the 15-minute city concept's capacity to diagnose and mitigate urban inequalities. The promotion of a more all-encompassing and inclusive measurement approach is posited as a contribution to the advancement of our comprehension and the effective implementation of the 15-minute city concept across heterogeneous urban landscapes. • This paper advocates for the development of a standardized index based on urban functions within a 15-minute walking distance. • The 15-minute city concept must include, besides proximity to opportunities, the quality of pedestrian infrastructure. • The index integrates individual preferences to understand the determinants of proximity, including sociodemographic attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public transport has claimed a preferential position in recent urban development agendas internationally. Rising interest on inclusive development of cities at different levels of urban policy involves new opportunities and challenges for increasingly urban societies. In cities of the Global South, in addition to institutional and physical challenges for the development of efficient and inclusive public transport, local governments face the challenge of making public transport affordable for a large share of the population in conditions of poverty. In order to meet these challenges, several public transport systems throughout have implemented targeted subsidies for specific social groups such as students, the elderly and people with reduced mobility, and more recently for the poor. The government of Bogotá has implemented a pro-poor public transport subsidy scheme that aims at alleviating the financial burden of poor households for accessing the city's public transport system. This research develops an analysis of the effects of such subsidy from an accessibility perspective using potential accessibility measures to employment opportunities and assess its impact on equity. The research builds on the hypothesis that accessibility is a multi-dimensional construct that can benefit from the decrease in economic as much as gains in time costs. Results from the analysis show that both the current structure of the pro-poor subsidies in Bogotá and alternative scenarios for increasing its coverage are progressive, improving accessibility and equity for those with access to the subsidy. The paper provides valuable insights for the analysis of similar policies in other urban contexts in the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bogotá's urban and regional planning has focused on pressing demographic, economic, and urban development needs that can no longer be administered without a comprehensive understanding of its surrounding region. Population growth in municipalities in the vicinity of Bogotá is twice that of the city, which in some cases has led to a functional integration and conurbation as part of the same territory, despite having different governments and uncoordinated urban development plans. This paper revisits the evolution of the governance and regulatory framework of Bogotá and its surrounding region, as contrasted with the spatial and socioeconomic aspects at the larger metropolitan scale, and analyses its effects on the current configuration of the city-region that we identify as the Bogotá Metropolitan Area. The paper draws conclusions from primary and secondary information, providing insights into the recent and future development of the city and its metropolitan area that is yet to be officially constituted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research was aimed at exploring levels of equity in accessibility to employment and education in the city-region of Bogotá, Colombia's capital city. Building on consolidated methodologies for the assessment of potential accessibility, we estimate accessibility indicators at the zone level, evaluate how potential accessibility varies among income groups, and present evidence related to transport mode, in order to analyze social and spatial inequalities produced by the distribution of accessibility to employment and education activities. The research incorporates a method to evaluate how accessibility varies among zones according to average income and mode of transport in order to produce evidence-based arguments that can inform transport policy in the city-region of Bogotá, and other similar contexts in the Global South. Our results show strong distributional effects of the socio-spatial and economic structure of the city-region, its transport infrastructure and services, and the effect of current transport and land-use policies for citizens of different income groups. The tools and empirical evidence in this research seek to contribute to informed policy development in Latin America and other developing contexts, and feeding current debates on the role of accessibility in addressing social and spatial inequalities stemming from urban mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a clean, accessible and healthy transport alternative, the benefits of cycling have been well-documented and suggest positive health, environmental and affordability outcomes. Despite a favourable rhetoric for cycling, in many cities in Latin America, its uptake has gained more traction among younger and carless populations than frequent users of private motorised vehicles. Recognising this reality, our article poses arguments for cycling beyond its classic benefits via direct comparisons of its performance against that of private cars. Our paper compares cycling and car-based trips, presenting evidence in cycling for policy and decision-making targeting a demand segment that has historically been more resistant to modal shifts to sustainable mobility. We contrast performance of both modes in relation to coverage and accessibility, testing different modal shift scenarios in the context of Bogotá, Colombia's capital city. As a city that has been recognised in the international literature for both its successes in urban transport policy and its persisting mobility and access inequalities, Bogotá's contrasts are an ideal setting for this research. We build on a geo-coded household travel survey for 2015 and API-sourced datasets to develop spatial coverage and potential accessibility metrics for cycling and car-based trips. Findings suggest Bogotá's large potential for further increases in cycling, particularly from car-users, which can lead to overall societal gains in terms of sustainable accessibility and present a fertile ground for bike-sharing systems. The paper builds on spatially and socially distributed findings to identify areas with the highest potential for bike-sharing in Bogotá. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Identifies injustices related to space distribution and modal share. • Street space distribution is a crucial factor in improving transport justice. • The fairness of street space distribution should be the first element to include in the transport justice analysis. • Transport justice should include fair distribution of street space. In dense cities, the smaller the consumption of land per inhabitant, the more disruptive the use of individual transport as a sustainable transport mode. The impact of private vehicles on transport justice in the spatial dimension is worse there. The unbalanced distribution of street space in dense cities implies considerable challenges for sustainable transport. This paper explores the relationships between mode share, street space distribution, and those spaces' construction costs. Based on justice principles, the paper discusses a fair distribution of street space in Bogotá, where injustices are apparent. We find imbalances in the prioritization of space for specific street users, with an accent on space for private motorization despite a visible change in investment in other spaces for urban mobility in recent years. Findings provide empirical evidence for informing policy and decision-making related to public investment in urban space and its distribution in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on travel and life satisfaction in vulnerable Global South contexts are scarce. This paper contributes by addressing how travel satisfaction, neighborhood satisfaction, and social capital relate to life satisfaction among a low-income community in Bogotá (Colombia) as a case study. Building on the available literature, we propose six hypotheses to understand such relationships before and after a cable car implementation, considering control and treatment groups. We defined seven latent variables and three objective indicators. We tested the hypotheses using a multiple-cause multiple-indicator modeling approach, which allowed us to identify how the comprehensive cable car intervention impacts perceptions and life satisfaction. Results showed that the principal factors associated with life satisfaction were neighborhood satisfaction as well as leisure activity participation, while travel time and transport affordability had negative effects. Positive changes in satisfaction regarding the travel experience can trigger significant improvements in life satisfaction in low-income communities in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Cyclists were clustered based on socioeconomic strata, gender, education and vehicle access. • Potential accessibility distance decay functions are used to assess equality indices. • 90% of women who cycle have access to 30% of the opportunities in a monocentric city. • In cities from the Global South the bicycle is positioned as a potential vehicle to redress social inequalities. • Understanding the concept of accessibility applied to the bicycle is a powerful resource for decision-makers. In a context of rising awareness for environmental concerns and promotion policies targeting non-motorized travel as a sustainable mobility solution, the bicycle has increasingly become an attractive transport mode in cities. However, accessibility to opportunities for people who cycle is not necessarily the same across socioeconomically different population segments, and it tends to be further constrained by high costs associated with the travel distance through the road network. This research examines equality in the accessibility to employment and education among cycle-user adults in Bogotá. Using 968 reported bicycle trips with these travel purposes in the 2015 Bogotá Household Travel Survey, we estimate a potential accessibility indicator and horizontal and vertical equality indicators. First, we identify three clusters through the K-prototypes method to classify bicycle commuters based on trip and socioeconomic characteristics, and second, we calculate potential accessibility using GIS-based trip distance decay functions, which is later assessed through equality indices such as Lorenz Curves, Gini index and Palma Ratio. Results show marked differences in potential accessibility to work and study opportunities between and within clusters, where up to 90% of the analyzed population of a cyclists' cluster has access to 30% of the job and study opportunities, indicating social and spatial inequalities produced by the urban structure and individual and household characteristics of regular cyclists. Results can guide in the implementation of accurate transport policies towards more equitable and sustainable transport in cities that are experiencing increases in bicycle ridership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]