Gonzalo Diaz used to rise at 4:30 am to hike down the steep, unpaved road from his home in the Usme slum and wait for the bus that would take him to work in Bogota's city center. As he trudged the 1.3 kilometers to the nearest bus stop, the 37-year-old, part-time construction worker deplored the sewage coursing down the side of the street in front of his neighbors' one-story concrete homes and the old men and women toiling through mud to get to market.

But today, with a new, paved road, new sidewalks, and new sewers, he sees alternatives. "We've got this road now and, buses that stop near people's homes. That saves me more than two hours a day in traveling time that I can use to hunt for work or do part time jobs. And for the first time, we've got access for emergency vehicles."

Usme, one of southern Bogota's poorest slums, is a vast warren of concrete homes and plywood-and-aluminum shacks housing tens of thousands of refugees from Colombia's economically battered countryside and its 37-year-old civil conflict. But as a result of a $65 million loan from the World Bank to improve transport and services throughout the city, even this down-and-out district is beginning to breathe hope. "Before we were cut off and abandoned," said Julio Cesar Barbosa, a 40-year-old shopkeeper, who was hawking soft drinks from a small house he shares with his wife and three children. "But we're connected now; we've got a road."

Access is the mantra for Bogota authorities, working with World Bank money and personnel to increase opportunities for the poor. Since 1996, when the World Bank began to dispense its loan, the city has constructed 19 new roads, increasing transport coverage by 20 percent and linking impoverished and once isolated neighborhoods with more than 1 million people. In the "belts of misery," where most people eke out a living in part-time construction and service jobs paying less than $150 per month, that new infrastructure—along with new sewers and parks—has made all the difference.

"People in these neighborhoods had to walk through mud and sewage, pay at least two bus fares, and spend hours in transport to get to their jobs," said Eduardo Bayon, a city finance official who heads the team that coordinates with the World Bank. "Now that they are linked to the main transport network, they pay less, spend less time on the road and feel less excluded."

Bogota is still a chaotic, gridlocked city with an excess of up to 20,000 contaminating buses, according to city officials. Agonizing traffic jams stretch nerves to breaking point. Many of the poor struggle to get to work.

But progress is being made. "We've tried to help in the creation of a more efficient system to improve the dignity and quality of daily life," said Mauricio Cuellar, a member of the World Bank project team.

Rosa Guevara, a middle-aged woman from a poor neighborhood in northern Bogota, understands the difference saved time can make. She was laid off as a dressmaker four years ago and now supports her family by working from home, making uniforms for high schools. But as Guevara rides the new Transmilenio bus system, she is surprisingly upbeat. The $427.6 million system of articulated buses, with dedicated bus lanes and automatic ticketing is not just much safer and cleaner than the old-smoke belching buses. The seamstress now saves two hours in transport time on her trips into the city center to buy cloth and thread. "I can make 10 to 12 dresses in those two hours," she said. "That's a lot of money for me."

The system's bright red buses—financed in part by a $31 million World Bank loan—are veritable race cars compared to other vehicles bottled up at intersections. They zip through special lanes at a speed 14 kilometers per hour faster than normal buses. They hook up with other inter-city transport for a single fare. And by the end of the year, they will cover the entire city from north-to-south and east to west with 23 routes and 55 stops. "Transmilenio is the most efficient transport system that Bogota has ever had," said Humberto Solaque, a 48-year-old lottery-ticket salesman who is paralyzed from the waist down. "And its the only bus system with raised platforms for a person in a wheelchair like myself."

Even traditionally surly taxi drivers say things are looking up. Only a couple of years ago, they endured days in tedious line to register their car or renew their drivers license only to end up paying shifty intermediaries to expedite their paperwork. Once on the road, they were prey to crooked cops extorting bribes for the most minor infractions.

But with the help of World Bank studies costing $4.3 million, the processing of public records has been privatized and a new police unit—widely considered to be more trustworthy—has been assigned to the roads.

Though corruption continues, it has at least been tamed. "I once paid more than a month's wage to an intermediary to save me the endless lines of registering my car," said taxi driver Norberto Tenjo. "Now I rely on myself, do the whole thing in two hours, and save myself a lot of time and money."