Medellin calls itself “The Innovation Center of Latin
America” and is said to be, along with Guadalajara, Mexico, one of the regions
two biggest tech hubs . But Medellin’s innovation goes well beyond just info
tech and includes one of the best public transportation systems in Latin
America, including Colombia’s only metro train system, a surface-level tram,
and dedicated bus lanes. Unusual for Latin American cities, there are bike
lanes on many of Medellin’s thoroughfares, and they do seem to be used. The
city also has an extensive bike-sharing program.

You see it in other ways too in Medellin. For example, there
are free bathrooms or port-a-toilets in parks and crowded public spaces, so the
streets don’t smell quite as much of urine as they do in many cities. I found
Medellin to be relatively clean by Latin American standards in terms of litter
too. And the extensive public transportation system must be working. There did
not seem to be the terrible traffic jams so typical of other Latin American
cities in Medellin.

That’s important, because Medillin’s physical situation in a
narrow valley between two tall mountain ranges seems a perfect layout for
trapping air pollution . And that did seem to be the case during the time of my
visit. It had apparently been unusually dry for the time of year and air
pollution got to unacceptable levels. So what did Medellin do? It made the
Metro system free for a week starting with the day I left the city to reduce
traffic congestion.

Probably the most interesting part of Medellin’s innovative
transportation network is the Metrocable system, three lines of cable cars that
connect with the metro train systems and go up into the hills above the city,
with two more such lines under construction according to the system maps. The
current lines mostly access poorer neighborhoods that have developed over time
up the steep hillsides, giving many lower-income people easy and inexpensive
access to the main transportation network. In most places in the world you have
to pay a lot to ride a gondola two or three thousand feet up into the hills for
spectacular views of a city, but in Medellin it’s just part of you 2,150 peso
(about $.70 cents) metro system ticket.

I rode both the Acevedo to Santo Domingo and the San Javier
to La Aurora Metrocable lines for some spectacular views of Medellin’s unique
urban topography. The first of the two links up to another Metro cable line that
goes even higher up into the mountains to a natural park named Arvi with hiking
trails and a lake.