Fonatur will demolish two bridges in Quintana Roo for the Maya Train

1106

The Mayan Train will not use the rights of way of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) in Quintana Roo: it will run on the median that divides the highway federal, so the vehicular bridges will be demolished at the height of the Moon Palace hotel and in Puerto Morelos, reported in an interview Raúl Bermúdez Arreola, deputy director of strategic policies and inter-institutional linkage of the National Fund for the Promotion of Tourism (Fonatur).

“We are going to demolish the Moon Palace and Puerto Morelos bridges; We are doing the planning with the municipal presidents (of Benito Juárez, Puerto Morelos and Solidaridad) to foresee all these diversion works that are prior to the start of the work, ”and assured that they are already seeing all the procedures to start the work as soon as possible. soon as posible.

In an exclusive interview with La Jornada Maya , the also in charge of the Cancun-Tulum section detailed the most recent adjustments to this flagship project of the federal administration.

He mentioned the Izamal-Cancun section, where “there is no longer a railway. The two contests that have already been assigned and started work are from Palenque to Izamal, where the railroads end; There are 970 kilometers of existing rail lines that we are only modernizing, so many terms such as MIA (Environmental Impact Statement) do not apply, because it is a project that has already been built for more than 100 years. ”

He stressed that in those sections what they are doing is a modernization: “it is not affecting more; Some curve rectifications are going to be made because this train has a maximum speed of 160 kilometers per hour, which means that it is a medium-speed train ”and the tracks that exist today from Palenque to Izamal are very worn.
“We intend to modernize what already exists and that is what is happening in the stretches already tendered.”

He recalled that the next weeks will carry out the third award of the project.

The project in Quintana Roo

In the fourth section (Izamal-Cancun) there are no more tracks, but they intend to take the train along one of the rights-of-way on the Mérida-Cancún highway, concessioned to the company ICA.

“We are in negotiation with them because the concession of that highway has at least 30 more years of validity and we are going to affect part of their right of way, that is, we are going to come from Izamal to Cancun by one of the bodies of this road, in this case we do not come through the middle of the ridge, but through one of the existing bodies of the road or highway ”

“We are going to expand so that in a single expanded body there can be the four rails plus their boundaries, and in the other body the double track train will come. It is important to clarify that from Merida to Cancun and from Cancun to Tulum it is the only part of the Mayan train that comes with double track, this due to the demand that has already been estimated in market studies, “he stressed.

According to these studies, in the third year of project operations, a train will be leaving the Cancun station every 11 minutes.

The agreement they are discussing with ICA includes the construction and maintenance of the train tracks by the company.

“We are about to close the negotiation with the concessionaire so that they build and maintain this section,” he reported.

Regarding the Cacún-Tulum section, he said that “we are killing two birds with one stone, because the need to make the Mayan train infrastructure supported the request of the Quintana Roo society for the expansion and modernization of the highway from Cancun to Tulum.”

He recalled that in the different forums held with the various sectors of civil society, the greatest demand was the expansion of lanes on this road, mainly by transporters and tourism service providers; in the case of environmentalists, they asked to include wildlife crossings on this road.

“Fonatur knew how to listen to society and proposed to make the infrastructure of the Maya Train for the median that goes between the two sections of the highway,” he said.

The jobs to come

“There are two tenders that are going to take place on the Cancun-Tulum section: one for the expansion of highway infrastructure and the second for the double railways that will go through the middle of the middle,” said Bermúdez Arreola.

The investment that is intended to be exercised in the expansion from Cancun to Tulum is 13 billion pesos, which consists of making a third lane in each of the bodies to Playa del Carmen and then a modernization of Playa del Carmen to Tulum. Modernization means that there will be no intersection: “we are going to reduce accidents by a large percentage because there will no longer be traffic lights.”

He added: “We are going to have many pedestrian bridges to avoid accidents, several wildlife crossings, we have just hired two jaguarologists, who are specialists, who know where the wildlife crossings are and the areas where they run over because they are constantly monitored and studied , they are going to rule where the wildlife crossings will be placed ”.

There will be 43 structures: 24 road mega-distributors or overpasses, and the rest pedestrian and wildlife crossings; the latter will be bridges that simulate that the jungle crosses from one side of the highway to the other, they will be wooded, with all the conditions to invite the fauna to cross them, they will confine the fauna to take them to that crossing, as it happens on Scandinavian roads.

The clover at the airport will be restructured because it is very limited; “It was already small, we changed it completely and a better one is coming. This is due to capacity studies that support the decisions that are being made. ”

He stressed that the right of way already exists, “since that road was planned, it was acquired (…) there are small garrisons, posts, announcements, which is what we are going to start with in 15 days now, to remove all the small invasions.”

Unsolicited proposal

The official also explained the existence of an unsolicited proposal: “it identifies a need and makes all the pertinent studies to present it to the pertinent authority and obtain a budget.”

In this case, Black Rock, one of the largest Canadian investment funds in the world, carried out all the studies and presented them to the Ministry of Communications and Transportation (SCT) for analysis and they have already been authorized and will be tendered .

“Whoever makes the unsolicited proposal has points of advantage, it is the same type of qualification as the past contests, where the United Nations participated, to help us qualify and that they reached the same number of Fonatur points, which helps to make the processes ”, and highlighted the support of the UN throughout the project.

“The unsolicited proposal is going to tender, it is going to present a proposal and there is going to be an open competition where anyone can participate,” he concluded.

Source: lajornadamaya.mx

The Mazatlan Post