Cancun, Q. Roo — A senator-elect for Quintana Roo announced a new bullet train will begin construction in 2019. It will be fully completed six years later, if the project stays on track.
The tren bala will cost 100 billion pesos, linking Cancun, Calakmul and Palenque, said José Luis Pech Várguez.
The project was among the campaign proposals made by president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador during a speech in Cancun in June.
The train is designed to bring tourism from the north to the south of the Peninsula. The government has long encouraged more tourism in archaeological zones in Tulum, Bacalar-Xcabal, Xpuchil, Calakmul, Becan and Palenque.
“I understand that they will make some adjustments to the route of the line and will define three stops. Two could be Playa del Carmen and Puerto Morelos, the third, perhaps Tulum on the Cancun-Tulum route,” he explained.
Proposed stops on the line are Cancún-Tulum-Carrillo Puerto-Bacalar-Calakmul-Palenque.
According to Pech Várguez, the first section of the Cancún-Tulum line will be finished in approximately two years.
“The project involves government, private initiative and owners of the ejido land where the railway line will be placed,” adding that “the ejidos that own the land will participate as partners of the project,” he explained.
The bullet train will have a top speed of 130 kilometers per hour/81 miles per hour, and it will be a passenger train, not used for cargo. The politician drew a distinction between this train and Cancun-Yucatán transpeninsular train project that was killed in 2015. That train would have been finished this year under their projected timeline.
Source: Sipse
