Bogotá is building cultural spaces in the bases of the pylons supporting their cable car system | Transportation infrastructure as an element of civic architecture and the network of civic assets

I just mentioned ("Planning urban design improvements at the neighborhood scale: Dupont Circle, DC") how I think that transit station entry buildings could be expanded somewhat to include community spaces.

Adjacent to the entry building to the Mont Royal Station, there is a food and garden market.  (There is a similar setup at the Papineau Station, and others.)

Montreal doesn't do this, but looking at their surface stations, such as at Mont Royal-Plateau, or Papineau, gave me the idea.  It's a concepet that could be extended to other transit agencies.

(For awhile the Federal Transit Administration supported the provision of child care centers at transit stations.  In the DC area, one such was built proximate, but not within, the Shady Grove Metrorail Station.

Bogotá has commenced construction on cultural spaces  ("Construction of luxury cultural spaces begins in TransMiCable pylons," City of Bogotá) at the bases of four pylons for their cable car system, called TransMiCable.

TransMiCable extends transit to the steep hills of the Ciudad Bolívar district and connects to Line T of the TransMilenio bus rapid transit system, which is a world class best practice example of such bus service.

According to the article, there are 26 cultural, social, and urban design projects underway or planned in association with the TransMiCable system -- leveraging the point I make about how the introduction of new transit infrastructure and programs should be utilized to drive complementary improvements across the existing transit network, increasing the likelihood of success for both.

-- "Setting the stage for the Purple Line light rail line to be an overwhelming success: Part 2 | proposed parallel improvements across the transit network"
-- "Using the Silver Line as the priming event, what would a transit network improvement program look like for NoVA?"

It's also an example of what I call Transformational Projects Action Planning.

The first cultural center is being built at Pylon 10 in the Share neighborhood of Ciudad Bolívar. It will include "a gallery, a walkable deck and stages for music, dance, performing arts and audiovisual projections."

At Pylon 20, in the Manitas neighborhood, the facilities will include an artist training center as well as a neonatal clinic.

At the El Paraíso Viewpoint, a city history museum is going to be developed, along with an art gallery and a tourism visitor center.

Similarly, there are small library facilities installed at some TransMilenio stations, including El Tunal Portal and the General Santander station.  (In the US, some libraries have installed book vending stations at transit stations, such as in Calgary and Anaheim.)

Not specifically associated with transit infrastructure, another initiative of the Bogotá government is the creation of what they call SuperCADEs, which are unified government services,  bringing together as many as 37 city, district, and national government functions into one place.  One being built alongside the TransMiCable is a facility in Manitas.

Conclusion

Using transportation infrastructure projects as a way to drive forward other civic asset projects ought to be standard operating procedure in local government project planning.

-- "Transit, stations, and placemaking: stations as entrypoints into neighborhoods," 2013

But it isn't.

We can learn a lot from Bogotá. 

And Medellín.

-- "'Social urbanism' experiment breathes new life into Colombia's Medellin," Toronto Globe & Mail
-- "Medellín's 'social urbanism' a model for city transformation," Mail & Guardian

Among others.