Bogotá: How Complicated is TransMilenio? Now There’s a Picture!

(Español aquí.) My recent writing on Bogotá’s Bus Rapid Transit system, TransMilenio, ended with an article on the extreme complexity of the service patterns, and the role this complexity plays in the many problems that people complain about. It turns out that there is a lovingly detailed diagram of all of TransMilenio’s service patterns. (It’s by someone calling themselves the Clarion Project, but I’m guessing this is not the US-based foundation of the same name.) Brace yourself: The whole map in all its glory is here. It’s overwhelming, but it’s still really useful, at least to map people like me. I wish I had had this when I was in Bogotá earlier this year. In fact, I wish TransMilenio published it, just for those who find this kind of representation useful. But even if you’re not a map person, we need this images to illustrate the problem. By carefully identifying every routing pattern and every stop, the map honestly represents how complicated TransMilenio truly is, and it’s not…