Summer internship in Mexico City

By Alendra Rios

As a dual-degree student in Urban Planning and Latin American Studies, I was eager to secure an internship in Mexico City for the past summer. Through the MURP alumni network, I managed to secure a position with the Institute for Transportation and Development Planning (ITDP) in one of their two offices in Latin America. I worked with the public transportation and active transportation teams, assisting with several of their ongoing projects.

Some of the most notable experiences I had included visits to a BRT bus charging lot and the city’s transportation department, alongside an ITDP-hosted delegation from Tanzania. In these experiences, I learned about upcoming projects for the city and how the BRT system functions under multiple operating companies.

Another interesting experience for me involved the audit of two BRT lines. I learned how to collect different data points to feed into an ITDP scorecard that allows for the comparison of BRT lines on a global scale. One of the BRT audits was particularly interesting because the line is elevated and uses trolleybuses attached to cables (most BRT lines run at street level and don’t require the additional infrastructure that trolleybuses do). During this audit, we also encountered a bureaucratic issue because we lacked a permit to record data. While the head of the City’s Transportation Department directly requested the audit from ITDP, the lack of the permit prevented us from fully completing our review.

With our audit cut short, we were able to test out a relatively new gondola line that primarily serves low-income communities by connecting them to the larger Metro system, reducing travel time for this part of their journey by half.

During my time in Mexico, I also traveled to Queretaro, Guadalajara, and Colima City, where I briefly learned about their public transportation systems. I was also able to visualize current and future transportation development and infrastructure plans, as discussed and studied with my ITDP colleagues.

These fieldwork experiences I describe are challenging to gain in a classroom setting, so I am grateful for having gone through this opportunity. I also appreciate all of my colleagues who fully welcomed me as part of the team, from teaching me about transportation issues from a non-US planning perspective to including me in the office social events, including their monthly “picnics” and their book and film club.