Our Colombian partner, the Follower City of Bogotá recently held an interactive demonstration of the euPOLIS methodology, by engaging professionals and citizens in an immersive sports, cultural and educational event, the Rodada euPOLIS bike ride.

The “Tour de Bogotá” ride was organized by the ERU’s Urban Management Department and the Universidad de Los Andes as part of the activations within the framework of the euPOLIS project and is the first of several that will take place periodically throughout the territories where the Company’s urban revitalization projects are located to make them visible and enhance their environmental and heritage values.

Collaborators from the Urban Renewal and Development Company of Bogotá, teachers and students from the Universidad de Los Andes, and several people from the community cycled through the territory where the Pieza Reencuentro will take place, the most significant urban renewal project of the next 50 years in Bogotá.

This project will approach planning with innovative strategies to implement Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) that seek to work for the health and well-being of citizens, in the place where the Metro, Transmilenio, Regiotram, and the Reencuentro Monserrate Aerial Cable will converge, forming the most important multimodal transport node in Bogotá and the country.

During the ‘EuPOLIS bike ride’, the attendees took a tour that allowed them to get closer to the historical, cultural, and environmental heritage of the Pieza Reencuentro, through the exaltation of the urban and natural elements of the territory, as well as appropriating sustainable and inclusive mobility.

“In the Pieza Reencuentro, these solutions seek to generate a territorial approach that allows overcoming the challenges associated with the greening of the center and Avenida Calle 26, articulating the NBS to innovate in a consolidated context”, explained the Manager of the Company of Renovation and Development of Bogotá, Juan Guillermo Jiménez Gómez, who led the bike tour.

The Company contributed to the Pieza Reencuentro, located on the representative axis of Calle 26, as it is one of the projects it is currently structuring. This seeks the articulation and integration of the north and south parts of the city that, due to the level of consolidation of the neighborhoods within it, makes this area a strategic sector to contribute to the commitment to revitalize Bogotá through interventions and the greening of public space, as well as urban reactivation associated with the definition of regulatory guidelines to be incorporated into the city’s Land Management Plan, in the process of review and adjustments.

Giovanna Spera, Assistant Manager of Urban Management, for her part, highlighted the importance of incorporating NBS into the greening strategies of the Pieza Reencuentro: “We are going to have 8 hectares of green spaces re-greened and renaturalized, as well as 14 and 4 hectares of new public and requalified space, respectively. These will make up the set of the first urban forest in Bogotá, and will be integrated with other NBS to promote sustainable drainage and the configuration of flora and fauna corridors”, she explained.

The six-kilometer tour of a circular route, organized by the Entándem Foundation, began at the National Library and included visits to heritage assets in the city center such as the Bicentennial Park, the Torres del Parque, the Plaza de Toros and the Planetarium, the San Diego Parish and the Tequendama building, the Central Cemetery, the Renaissance Park, the Museum of Memory, the SuperCade and the La Florida Square.

Please, find the original post HERE.