The pedicab drivers starred a protest that began this Friday morningAugust 12 in the vicinity of Portal of the Americas, the City of Cali and Patio Bonito.
reports from the authorities, traffic agents arrived in the area where the blockades were taking place to control the situationbut the presence of the uniformed officers caused the pedicab drivers to start vandalizing the Transmilenio they found in their path.
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In this sense, Transmilenio reported that the transport service returned to operate around 3:00 pm and continues without affectations; nevertheless, there are material losses because the protests broke the windows of public transport and even houses in the area.
In the statement of said company, it is reported that, “during the course of the day, unfortunately two operators of the zonal component were injured”.
In terms of material losses, there are 17 trunk buses and 20 zonal buses affected, of which losses of 76 million pesos are evaluated.
Why are the pedicabs protesting in Bogotá?
On July 26, the mayor of Bogotá, Claudia López, ordered that pedicabs should be taken out of circulation as they are illegal transport and have no regulation, arguing that the city currently has a wide range of transportation that makes pedicabs not required.
After this announcement the workers went out to march and for this reason, the president determined that those who should not operate were those who had a motor, motorcycle taxis; however, there are still manifestations that demand the dignity of work and that the authorities stop persecuting bicycle taxi drivers as criminalsaccording to this transporter guild.
Therefore, this Thursday, August 11 at the Council of Bogotá, a draft agreement was filed what are you looking for the creation of a public policy that guarantees the right to work and the vital minimum for the more than eight thousand bicycle taxi drivers that operate in the 20 localities of the city.
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For her part, María Clara Name, the councilor who promotes this initiative, explains that “although we have seen that this is a shortcoming that has been going on for several years due to lack of regulation, bicycling is not prohibited, but it is not allowed either. There are more than eight thousand drivers throughout the city, serving nearly 150 thousand daily users”.
So far, Claudia López has not commented on what happened today.
