Public transportation in Peru’s capital of Lima can be an intimidating affair. A bewildering cacophony of privately operated buses, minibuses and vans crisscross the city with men hanging out the doors, cajoling pedestrians to hop aboard. There is little respect for traffic rules. In an interview last year, Lima Mayor Luis Castañeda referred to city travel as “total and absolute chaos.”
But city officials are hoping to bring some order to that chaos later this month when they unveil Lima’s new $538-million integrated urban bus system, El Metropolitano. The project—known as the Segregated High-Capacity Corridor, or by its Spanish-language acronym COSAC—is being built by ProTransporte, a division of the city’s transportation department.