La Veleta waits for a crosswalk as federal road money falls

Federal funding for highway upkeep is set to fall from 50 billion pesos this year to roughly 27 billion in 2027, and Highway 307 through Tulum is funded from that purse.

Jesús Antonio Esteva Medina, who heads the Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation, gave the figure last week after the opening of the Canacar national freight convention, in remarks reported by Milenio. He hedged it. As far as he understands, he said, next year brings 27 billion.

Tulum has two requests pending on that highway while the number is being settled. The neighborhood committee of La Veleta filed a petition on September 21 asking the agency for a road safety study at the Avenida Quinta Sur crossing. In August, the Tulum hotel association asked for pedestrian crossings and speed controls before the winter season. The Chamber of Deputies votes on the spending budget that funds either answer before November 15.

27 billion pesos, down from 50

The comparison is with the secretary's own program. The National Highway Conservation Program allocated 50 billion pesos in 2026 to work on 18,000 kilometers of the federal network, as part of a wider 70 billion package that the presidency said also covers feeder and rural roads. Esteva said that money lets the agency intervene on half the network this year.

Twenty-seven billion is about 46 percent less, by our arithmetic.

The southeast took the largest regional slice of the 2026 program, 10,873 million pesos for 3,140 kilometers across seven states, Quintana Roo among them. Nothing equivalent has been published for 2027, so there is no state figure yet to compare it with.

What the 2026 program bought on Highway 307

Quintana Roo's share this year was reported at 575 million pesos for routine work and reconstruction across 900 kilometers of federal road. Highways 180 and 307 accounted for 316 kilometers of that, with 121 kilometers fully rebuilt, according to figures published in May by Por Esto! The construction chamber CMIC, describing the same program, placed 342 million pesos in the Riviera Maya corridor and road markings along 576 kilometers.

SICT reported the state's conservation work at 14 percent progress on June 4, in figures presented from the National Palace, with completed stretches in Cancún, Chetumal, Felipe Carrillo Puerto and Tulum.

That is the budget line that buys asphalt and paint. A traffic light or a refuge island at one intersection is a different kind of work, and it begins with the technical study the La Veleta committee requested. The study and the device would come from the same agency.

The state's own road budget is 147.9 million pesos

Quintana Roo cannot cover the gap. Avenida Tulum through town is Federal Highway 307, which places the roadway and the devices installed on it under federal authority, and the state's road money is thin in any case.

Appearing before the state Congress on October 7, Quintana Roo's public works secretary said 4,000 kilometers of state roads are going without attention. Road infrastructure took 147.9 million pesos of the 1,182 million his department spent between June 2025 and June 2026, 12.5 percent of its outlay. He asked deputies for 125 million pesos in public works funding for 2027 and put the cost of rehabilitating those 4,000 kilometers at nearly 10 billion pesos. The department works with under 2 percent of the state budget.

Hoteliers want the entry fee to pay for the road

The industry is arguing over a different pot, and it is the one foreign visitors fill.

On October 7, the Consejo Hotelero del Caribe Mexicano published a position addressed to the federal government and Congress about the Derecho de No Residente, the fee non-resident visitors pay to enter the country. The 2027 economic package raises it from 983 to 1,334.80 pesos, an increase of 35.8 percent, and by 55 percent compared with the 861 pesos charged in 2025. At this week's exchange rate, the new figure is about $ 73 per visitor, by our arithmetic.

The council's objection is that the fee does not fund. Its statement says the proposed distribution leaves nothing for tourism promotion, and it asks for a working table with the finance ministry, the tourism ministry and Congress. Eight associations signed it, including the Asociación de Hoteles de Tulum. The council did welcome one item in the package, the money assigned to the sargassum program.

The highway has been on that list before. In March 2025, the same council proposed to federal tourism officials and to the Senate tourism committee that part of the fee be earmarked for maintenance of Highway 307. Eugenio Segura, who chairs that committee, called the idea viable and said he would take it to the tourism secretary. The October statement does not mention the road.

September's petition has no folio yet

What Tulum asked for is small against those numbers.

Verónica Genovali, president of the Comité Vecinal de La Veleta, signed a five-page filing on September 21 addressed to the head of the SICT center in Quintana Roo, with copies to the town hall, the municipal transit and mobility office and IMOVEQROO. It asks for an inspection during peak hours, vehicle and pedestrian counts, speed measurements, a feasibility assessment of signals and a protected crossing, provisional measures while the study runs, a technical roundtable with the three levels of government, and a written answer. When this publication reported the filing on September 29, the committee had reported no folio.

The hotel association's August 22 list was shorter and aimed at the same road. Pedestrian crossings, bus shelters and effective speed controls, before the high season. Its president, David Ortiz Mena, described the 307 as a problem for the people who live in the region as much as for the people who visit it.

The Chamber of Deputies has until November 15 to approve the 2027 spending budget. Until that vote, 27 billion pesos is a figure the secretary expects rather than money that has been assigned, and the share that reaches Quintana Roo is decided afterward. The folio Genovali asked for depends on none of that, and she is still waiting for it.

Should part of the fee foreign visitors pay to enter Mexico be earmarked for crossings and lighting on Highway 307? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes.