Tren Maya’s inauguration in December 2023: tripled investment revealed
The date to launch the Tren Maya remains firm for December 1, 2023, and it encompasses the entire Tren Maya circuit, according to Óscar Lozano Águila, director of the company under the National Defense Secretariat (Sedena) that will be in charge of the operation and administration of this system, which is being rushed to completion.
“The start date of December 1, 2023 includes the entire Tren Maya circuit. We hope to have the certainty to inform the public at the appropriate time which sections will have been completed by that date,” he said during an interview with EFE.
In recent months, work on one of the most representative projects of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration has accelerated in Quintana Roo and Yucatán, and even the monthly supervisory visits by the president are now conducted every 15 days.
Just a few days ago, the passage of one of the locomotives used to transport ballast and construction materials through the southern part of Quintana Roo and the Mayan region caused a great deal of excitement in rural communities.
One of the largest stations in the entire project is being built behind the Cancun International Airport. The work is underway 24 hours a day and does not stop even on holidays because it has to be ready by early July, as it will be where the first of the trains built in Ciudad Sahagún will be presented.
Recently, the governor of Quintana Roo, Mara Lezama Espinoza, announced on her social media the arrival of the first machines for next July, which will be used for the first rolling tests on the tracks.
According to the National Tourism Fund (Fonatur), section 4, which spans from Izamal to Cancun, already has 200 kilometers of completed tracks in both directions.
The investment for the Tren Maya has tripled
When the project was announced, which covers the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo, where a 1,554-kilometer railway route is planned to be built, an investment of 120 billion pesos (approximately 6.3 billion dollars) was initially mentioned, but that figure has practically tripled in recent years.
Initially, the Tren Maya railway tracks were planned to run along the federal highway between Cancun and Chetumal. The first works were even carried out to build what would be the Playa del Carmen station, and more than 20,000 trees were removed. However, after numerous protests from the tourism and business sector, the Mexican government announced a change in the route.
The new plans generated immediate reactions from environmental groups who denounced the lack of environmental studies. They not only initiated a legal battle at national and international levels but also closely monitor and document the environmental impacts.
Just last February, during one of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s daily press conferences at the National Palace, Javier May, director of the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur), in charge of the project, spoke of a new design for section 5.
In this new design, it was projected that 42 kilometers out of the 67 between Playa del Carmen and Tulum would be elevated to protect the karst soil, cenotes, caves, and underground rivers in the area.
The Tren Maya is one of President Lopez Obrador’s megaprojects aimed at promoting development in the southeast of Mexico, while national and international organizations have expressed concern about the possible negative impact on the human rights of Mexican indigenous peoples and the environment in the area.
