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By Travel Drunk, March 18, 2010 3:00 pm

Bogota’s mass transit system is called the TransMilenio, and I thought it was so great that I decided to devote a post to it (that’s pretty fuckin dorky).  Bogota is a huge, urban, sprawling mess, not unlike many U.S. cities.  They had no efficient transportation system, traffic was a nightmare, and installing a subway system wasn’t feasible.  The solution was to devote the center lanes of the major highways and surface streets to the TransMilenio system, which is just a glorified bus route.  It works just like any subway system: you pay about $0.70 to get a ticket, go through the turnstile onto the platform, go to the correct part of the platform for the line you want to take, and when the doors open, get on the bus.  Just like any other subway system you can transfer between lines as much as you need to without leaving the platforms, and without paying.  It’s faster than taking a cab most places, it’s cheap, and most importantly, it’s easy.