just when La Rolita, the public electric bus operator of Bogotádazzled internationally for its model of sustainability and gender focus, a bucket of cold water fell on it. The Administrative Court of Cundinamarca has confirmed a ruling from January 2022, which declared null and void the authorization given by the Council to the Mayor’s Office of Claudia López (2020-2023) to create the company. It found that he did not present the previous studies required by law. Now, the Administration of Carlos Fernando Galán announces that it wants to maintain the company that manages 11 bus routes that benefit 21 neighborhoods in the south of Bogotá and the only aerial cable that the capital has. This was stated by the mayor through your X account on Thursday night: “We are going to study the different legal and administrative alternatives to the ruling of nullity of the Administrative Court of Cundinamarca and we will do what is necessary to correct the errors that have been committed in the creation of La Rolita in the last administration.”
At stake is the service that mobilizes 35,000 people a day and the work of nearly 600 employees. 59% of its 457 drivers are women, of whom, in turn, 43% are mothers who head their families, according to data from the last Accountability. María Fernanda Ortiz is manager of the state-owned TransMilenio, 80% owner of the operator. He maintains that at the moment The services provided by La Rolita will continue to operate . The paths to take now, however, are difficult.
Darío Hidalgo, professor of Transportation at the Javeriana University, assures that La Rolita would have to suspend operations unless the Council reauthorizes its creation before the ruling is implemented. For that, the Mayor’s Office should return to the Council, now with the studies. “The Council would debate and vote on approval, but that takes time,” he says. In the meantime, the District should transfer the operation of the system to a third party, declaring the urgency manifest. Heidy Sánchez, opposition councilor of the leftist Historical Pact, sees the situation in the council as complex. And not only to get the votes in favor, but because projects such as the approval of the budget for 2025 are already lined up.
The debate about approval has been going on for some time. Claudia López, the first woman to be elected mayor of Bogotá, included in her project Development plan authorization for the mayor’s office to create a public transportation operator in a city where private companies own the buses. It was an old desire of many Bogota residents, critics of the private operation visible especially in the massive system, the Transmilenio. Once the Council approved the Plan, the Mayor’s Office issued a decree with which he established the District Transportation Operator, baptized by López as La Rolita.
Since then, the company operates the routes of one of the 13 zones into which the operation of most of the city’s buses is divided, known by its technical name of the Integrated Public Transportation System, or SITP. La Rolita came in to replace a private company that went bankrupt, since no other private operator wanted to take over the area. The fleet would not be just any: La Rolita It debuted with 195 electric buses – of the 1,485 that the SITP has – and with female drivers. This was a novelty: at the time, only 1.4% of SITP drivers were women. It not only sought to create female employment in a masculinized sector, but also to improve the quality of service. Also reduce accidents: 71.3% of the 20.6 million summonses related to road safety imposed in Colombia between 2010 and 2021 were imposed on men.
In full preparation for these goals came the first problem. The lawyers Felipe Bastidas Paredes and Germán Calderón España demanded the annulment of the article of the Development Plan that authorized the creation La Rolita. Calderón Spain is a well-known litigator: only in recent months represented the Foreign Ministry in the conciliation with Thomas Greg & Sons for the passport contract and protected the president Gustavo Petro for calling female journalists “mafia dolls”.
The plaintiffs argued that the article was illegal because it violated Law 152 of 1994, which requires mayors to prepare their development plan in accordance with the government plan they presented as candidates, and Law 489 of 1998, which establishes that the creation of decentralized entities requires a study to justify the initiative.
On January 19, 2022, the Sixth Administrative Court of Bogotá ruled in their favor. The District appealed and moved forward with the creation of The castwhich was ready at the end of 2022. In December of that year, the private energy company Enel bought 20% of the company’s shares, thereby La Rolita It became a mixed economy company that eventually also took charge of the Ciudad Bolívar aerial cable.
In February of this year, this last adjustment set off alarms. La Rolita reported that a judge was studying a popular action which discussed the legality of the contract to operate the cable. The then councilor and today director of the Administrative Department of the Space Defender’s OfficeLucía Bastidas and a neighborhood leader from Ciudad Bolívar argued that the operation should have been put out to tender. In June, La Rolita proposed terminate the contract to manage the cable early and guarantee its operation while a public process was carried out to award the contract.
Just a few months after that legal blow, the Court of Cundinamarca takes the entire floor from the company. The magistrates found that the Mayor’s Office did not provide a study that demonstrated that creating an operator was better than other options. “It cannot be accepted that decentralized entities are promoted on a whim, out of desire, improvised, without factual, legal, financial and technical support,” says the ruling, which cannot be appealed. Regarding the practical argument that the annulment would affect transportation in the city, the Court indicates that the responsibility is not its own. “The District Council cannot attempt to transfer to the Judicial Branch the consequence of its illegal procedures, which only that Public Corporation and the Mayor’s Office are responsible for assuming.” Furthermore, the Court denies the Mayor’s request to give a period of two years to correct the alleged defect and deliver the studies.
Not only the Galán administration is on alert, but also Claudia López’s former officials. Deyanira Ávila, who was Secretary of Mobility, has alleged that the sentence ignores the jurisprudence. Nicolás Estupiñán, who preceded Ávila in office, regretted the decision. “La Rolita It’s all that’s right. Female inclusion in formal employment, with training and reconversion of skills. Electric, clean, zero emissions transportation. Coverage in areas where private companies did not want to be in the past. “It is very sad when politics destroys jobs and breaks dreams,” published in X. Expert Darío Hidalgo believes something similar, who assures that the debate has an ideological undertone. “Private operators did feel that this could be a threat to the future of their operation. There is an interest in the non-existence of La Rolita”, he tells this newspaper.
For Councilor Sánchez, a key advance in transparency for the city may be lost, since with a public operator the District was able to directly know what the operating costs of the transportation system are, which allows it to compare the information provided by private operators. to negotiate their remuneration. It also leaves out other legal echoes, such as the legal actions that the multinational Enel may take or the possibility, which councilor Humberto ‘Papo’ Amín (Democratic Center) has warned in conversation with W-Dayabout what the Comptroller’s Office evaluates a possible patrimonial detriment.
