The Map Of Transmilenio – Representation, System And City

In this paper, I address the following questions: What do experts negotiate when they discuss the contents of a map of a system? It is a negotiation of a purely representational tool? Or is the negotiation also about what the system is and how it should evolve? What implications does this have for the development of the city of Bogotá? Departing from Peirce’s triad of index, symbol and icon, I trace the discussions surrounding the evolution of the map of the urban transportation system Transmilenio in the city of Bogotá. I find that the experts involved were not only negotiating the contents of the representation (symbol and interpretant), but also the system itself (object and index). I also outline how this can have consequences for the city: the map as an icon.