MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s massive, debt-driven passenger train construction program won’t end with administration Outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obradorbut instead it will double, he said Wednesday.
López Obrador said that his successor, the president-elect claudia sheinbaum, plans to build three passenger train lines that will link the capital with some cities on the border with the United States. López Obrador and Sheinbaum agree that she will build about 3,000 kilometers (1,850 miles) of passenger railways, double the amount he built.
Sheinbaum said the trains would be electric and run at speeds of up to 100 mph (160 kph). Almost all of Mexico’s current freight trains run on diesel.
Sheinbaum said he was planning to build a passenger line from Mexico City to the border city of Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas, a distance of about 680 miles (1,100 kilometers) at a cost of about 22 billion dollars. However, the cost of Mexico’s most recent rail projects has soared well above initial estimates.
Sheinbaum said he was also planning a train line from Mexico City to the western city of Guadalajara, for about another $3 billion, and said the rail line could be extended to border cities such as Nogales, across from Nogales, Arizona. or other more distant border cities. West if he had time in his six-year term.
Sheinbaum’s plan will involve Army engineers directing private contractors to build passenger lines along the same rights-of-way currently used by private concessional operators to move freight.
That could involve moving existing rail lines to make way for the new tracks, which could mean some disruptions to current freight service if existing lines need to be moved.
López Obrador had previously required freight line operators to provide passengers service as well, but that plan has apparently been shelved.
López Obrador also acknowledged that there could be large costs associated with confining the expected high-speed rail lines with walls or fences, and costs associated with recovering rights of way that have been invaded by squatters.
Current concessionary private rail operators said they had no immediate comment on the plans or did not respond to requests for comment.
López Obrador said the project is expected to be almost double the size of his own railway construction programs, which included the $30 billion Mayan tourist train in the Yucatan Peninsula. a railroad across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec linking the Pacific and Gulf coasts, and a commuter railroad linking Mexico City with the nearby city of Toluca.
The cost of those railways has led the López Obrador administration to publish a budget deficit of almost 6% of GDP this year, while experts wonder how much trains will actually be used in a country where most travelers currently use cars, buses or airlines to cover the thousands of kilometers that the routes involve.
Observers say one of the key problems is that López Obrador’s railway lines (and apparently Sheinbaum’s too) have been planned with a “build it and they will come” attitude, with little real effort to identify whether there is enough demand to justify passenger service. to remote border towns.
There is little passenger rail infrastructure in US border cities to provide connections to any Mexican rail line that may be built.
López Obrador and Sheinbaum belong to the Morena party, and Sheinbaum was elected with the promise of continue or expand all of López Obrador’s policies.
The outgoing president has always said he regrets Mexico’s decision to hand over poorly managed national railways to private operators in the 1990s, when they largely abandoned unprofitable passenger services.
But it also sees building rail lines as a way to create jobs and stimulate domestic growth.
“What does this mean?” Lopez Obrador said. “Jobs, many jobs.”
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