Cancun, QR. With less than 50% progress on sections 5, 6 and 7 of the Tren Maya, the inauguration date for the project remains unchanged at December of this year, with tests scheduled to begin on July 8.
This was ratified this Monday, May 15th, during President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s morning conference, in which representatives of the companies in charge of these sections and the Ministry of National Defense announced some of the progress made on the train’s route that runs from north to south through the state of Quintana Roo.
For example, Guadalupe Phillips Margain, general director of ICA, announced that Section 5 South (subsection 3, 20 kilometers from Puertos Aventuras to Playa del Carmen) is 41.2 percent complete.
In detailing the work, he also stated that the installation of the embankment is 61.1 percent complete, but the ballast and rails on which the train will run are only 2.5 percent complete; at the Playa del Carmen station the percentage is 26 percent.
Regarding sections 5 north, 6, 7 and the Tulum Airport, General Gustavo Vallejo, from the Ministry of National Defense, stated that the works have a general progress of more than 20%, “the works started in August 2022 and will be concluded in December of this year”.
Prior to both presentations, the director of the National Fund for the Promotion of Tourism (FONATUR), Javier May, indicated that in addition to the tracks and stations, along the 627 kilometers of the Mayan Train’s route through Quintana Roo, 800 complementary works are being built, such as bridges, drainage, pedestrian, vehicular and fauna crossings, which has generated more than 20,000 jobs so far.
Previously, during a working visit to Tabasco, the head of Fonatur assured that the Mayan Train “is being built 600% faster than what is normally built in other countries, and what should take 10 years, we are going to do it in three; it is being consolidated in record time”.
The official said that, at least for the section that runs through Tabasco, the train tests for section 1 will begin on October 1st in order to inaugurate the 1,500 kilometers of the entire route in December of this year.
Before its inauguration in December of this year, the Mayan Train, he said, will be tested at 176 kilometers per hour, 10% above its capacity, which is 160 kilometers, to fully guarantee its safety and speed.
Expropriations and injunctions
In addition to the fact that the progress of the three sections that run through Quintana Roo is less than 50%, the federal government has not yet concluded with the “consensual” expropriations of the land for the project.
Just this Monday, the second notice of expropriation was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation “due to the public utility of an area of 8,118.9 square meters, of two privately owned properties, located in the municipality of Othón P. Blanco, in the state of Quintana Roo”.
The construction of a depot and workshop for the trains is contemplated in these properties that correspond to Section 6 of the Mayan Train.
In addition, a decision is pending as to whether the judiciary grants or withdraws the suspension of the disembarkation of stone from Cuba for the production of ballast to be used in Sections 5, 6 and 7 of the Tren Maya.
The constitutional hearing of this injunction should have been held last Friday, April 21, however, the Judiciary informed that it was postponed until May 18, due to the fact that the responsible authorities, that is, the federal government through the Ministry of National Defense and Fonatur, have not submitted the reports requested on the case.
Ongoing investigation
The project must be subject to an investigation ordered by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) of the T-MEC, since said body found elements to open a file on the Tren Maya case.
Such investigation is the result of the petition on effective enforcement of environmental legislation filed since 2022 by the environmental organization Moce Yax Cuxtal and other organizations and individuals based in Quintana Roo, which invoked chapter 24 of the T-MEC.
The environmentalists who filed the appeal assert that Mexico is failing to effectively enforce its federal environmental laws in the construction of Section 5 south of the Tren Maya project in the municipalities of Solidaridad and Tulum.
TYT Newsroom
