The anniversary of ignominy: the Mexico-Toluca train celebrates its 7th anniversary

It has been seven years since Construction begins on the Mexico-Toluca intercity train, one of the major projects of Enrique Peña Nieto’s six-year term, has today turned into a project full of delays and cost overruns that the current government seeks to inaugurate in 2024.

Construction began during the government of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), but it took much longer than expected because initially was due to open in 2017.

“Once the work is fully completed and the trains that will connect Toluca to Mexico City are in service, the investment will reach approximately 90,000 million pesos (approximately $ 4,500 million).», Declared the Mexican president during a construction supervision visit last November, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

From now on, the president and all the actors aim to the estimated 230,000 daily passengers can board the 30 trains provided by a consortium led by the Spanish company CAF.

“The social impact of the Mexico-Toluca train will be perceived almost immediately. We are confident that the influx will be very large, people will see the benefits of using it and it will justify the expense“He told Efe Carlos Mira Hatch, from SGS.

During an Efe visit to the works to learn about the progress of the work, the spokesperson for SGS – a company that provides advice, control and monitoring of the project – gave all the details of the work, almost 58 kilometers long progress a bit slowly but “safely”, he said.

Large pillars that rise in the middle of the Toluca valley, a tunnel that enters the mountain, a cable-stayed bridge, are some of the parts of the works that give an idea of ​​the scale of the intercity train project.

Divided into several sections, The work has a bitunnel, a viaduct that reaches Mexico City, main bridges in their engineering and a place for workshops and garages where ready-made trains await the cannon, among other things.

FAR FROM CORRUPTION

The engineer insisted on the great transparency of the project which, he says, He has between 40 and 60 audits, which is why he ruled out corruption and irregularities.

“The Mexico-Toluca train is a highly audited project and the conclusions that were found were justified and until today there has been no sanction for a bad decision made or a situation badly lived.“, concrete.

And with him, Pablo Montes partly agreed, anti-corruption coordinator at the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO), a public policy research center that published in 2018 the research “Inefficiency and Corruption Risks in Public Works: A Case Study of the Mexico-Toluca Intercity Train”.

“IMCO did not find any hiring problems. The problems that one could see as a possible risk of corruption concerned precisely the litigation of the ground through which the train was going to pass. We did not find any significant corruption risks», Explained the expert.

Regarding the train route, Mira Hatch explained that changes needed to be made in several areas due to two main issues: adapt to social issues and minimize the environmental impact.

“Throughout the period of the works, there were continuity problems derived from social demands, but they were resolved ”, He said.

And it is that the most advanced parts are in the sections closest to Toluca, a city located about an hour from the Mexican capital and with which the flow of people has been increasing for years.

THE INITIAL PROBLEM

But the project has been going slowly for seven years now because the planning proposed by the government of Peña Nieto was not the most effective.

“Since the start of construction of the train, 100% of the track layout had not been cleared, for example. It is a general problem of public works in Mexico: planningMontes considered.

The expert assured that the project and its planning problems belonged to the administration of Peña Nieto, but considered that the current The government can not fail to assess whether it “compensates” to complete the intercity train, the costs of which have multiplied over the years.

“This waste begs the question whether the work is still profitable and whether the social benefit and the cost of tickets will keep it profitable. If this cost had been planned at the outset, it might not have been done“, He expressed.

And it is that the works today have an advance of about 80% and the estimated projections already bring the cost of the works to 93,890 million pesos (approximately $ 4.7 billion).

While the initial budget was around 38,500 million pesos, according to IMCO specialist, surprised because López Obrador, very critical of his predecessors, will not reject this project, an example of some “pharaonic works” and without sufficient planning in Mexico.

EFE

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