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Smog capital Mexico City bikes it
The 49-year-old bespectacled mayor has championed a series of populist measures to improve life in the city for its masses since he took power in 2006, including a public beach and an enormous ice rink.

But Ebrard, who makes no secret of his presidential ambitions, has also launched a wide-reaching Green Plan, which lasts beyond the end of his six-year term in 2012, including plans for waste management, reduced water consumption, bike lanes and solar-powered buildings with gardens on the walls.

"The first priority is to increase the size of the public transport system, to make it bigger and better, that's a very big investment,'' the softly-spoken mayor from the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party said in the city's government palace.

The plan includes adding 24 kilometres to the bulging 200-kilometre metro network, building a network of Metrobuses - which speed across the city in their own lanes - and replacing rickety old minibuses.

It also involves updating a range of legal and illegal taxis, with some 35,000 already changed.
The mayor said he hopes the economic crisis, which has already provoked cutbacks in the city hall, will not put a brake on his projects.

"It could affect us through credit restrictions, because that could mean that we can't change the vehicles, the taxis, the minibuses. We could be hit there. It won't hit the public transport program much because that depends on the budget and we've planned for it, unless there is a catastrophe,'' Ebrard said.

An area approaching catastrophe is water in the urban area with some 20 million inhabitants. Over-use of underground aquifers has caused areas of the city to sink severely, damaging drainage systems.

"We have to treat a lot of water and reduce consumption,'' Ebrard said. ``Last year we managed to increase water revenue by 17 per cent and that is the best limit on consumption.''

The plans also involve attempts to shake up the city's waste management, amid a dispute over the closure of the city's largest landfill and a new campaign to fine citizens who fail to separate their rubbish.

That issue is one of many which involves persuading the federal government, controlled by a rival political party, and neighbouring Mexico state to lend their support.

Ebrard said he did not expect it to be easy to carry out planned long-term changes, but that the battle was worth it.

"The important thing is for people to change their way of living in the city so it's better,'' he said.
Better life in Mexico City involves less crime, cleaner air and more responsible citizens and, according to Ebrard, taking back the streets from cars is key in trying to reach those goals.

"We're interested in separating ourselves from cars as much as possible,'' the mayor said.

"It will be a fight, a battle, because people don't want their cars taken away, right?''

In two years as mayor of Mexico's capital, Ebrard, who says he is influenced by use of public space in European cities, has swept street vendors out of the historic main square and introduced pedestrian areas.

"People are returning to the centre of the city. And as the community appropriates public space it becomes safe, or safer.''

"We're advancing in the centre because you can walk in the street. We want to do the same in other parts of the city.''

As challenging as it might sound, the descendant of French immigrants wants citizens to get on their bikes, inspired by Paris and its bike-renting scheme.

Thousands already swarm onto the city's main roads on bikes, rollerblades and foot when they are temporarily closed every Sunday.

"Now more people use bicycles because we close the avenues on Sundays. We'll carry on forward with that project, and this year we'll have bike lanes and bike stations,'' Ebrard said.

"If we manage to convert five or six per cent of journeys to bicycles, it's a very big change."
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