With the warning of Minister of Transportation, Guillermo Reyes, that if the Bogotá Mayor’s Office does not accept the modifications in the first line of the Metro, the National Government can stop other projects, The continuity of infrastructure works such as the second line of the Metro to Suba and Engativá, the Regiotram del Norte and aerial cables are put at risk.
(See: Government warns: ‘if Bogotá does not accept anything, we do not finance projects’).
The head of the Transport portfolio refers, specifically, to the fact that the president Gustavo Petro He has insisted that a section of line 1 of the megaproject be underground.
“If the proposed modifications are not accepted, as has been said, within the legal framework, then the government also, to the extent that it finances 70 percent of the other projects, the other projects are going to have to stall“, was the warning issued by Minister Reyes when entering a council of ministers in the Palace.
(See: Bogotá Metro: how viable is it to change the contract?).
Indeed, in the last days, the mayoress Cladia López had been insisting that the construction of the first line of Bogotá continues and has asked President Petro to leave key infrastructure works to Bogota such as the Regiotram del Norte and three aerial cables: San Cristóbal, and the two Monserrate – Reencuentro lines, as well as ecological trails, the Alameda Medio Milenio Cycle and ecosystem connection.
Gustavo Petro and Claudia Lopez
But we must not forget that at this moment the second line of the Metro, Suba and Engativá, is completing procedures with the National Government, and that it is one of the flags of the mayoress of Bogotá.
(See: Petro says that the elevated Metro in Bogotá is a ‘chambonada’).
Lòpez spoke this week about the need to move forward with the construction of the first line of the Bogota Metro, which registers an advance of 18 percent. “Bogotá’s priority is to co-finance the three cables and the Regiotram del Norte. It is not changing the contract of the First Line of the Metro. In that same co-financing agreement there would have to be 25 billion pesos, and not 12 billion as up to now, to make Bogotá’s priorities, plus the modification that the president proposes to the First Line of the Metro, if it is finally done as he poses“Lopez explained.
It should be remembered that last week President Gustavo Petro and Mayor Claudia López met analyzing the proposals presented by the Chinese consortium, at the request of the same president, and they agreed to set up two tables (one legal and the other technical and financial) to analyze the feasibility of making an underground section.
(See: Claudia and her request to Petro: to co-finance the Regiotram del Norte).
The head of state requested, at that meeting, that the alternative be considered between Primero de Mayo Avenue with Carrera 50 and 72nd Street with Caracas Avenue. Nevertheless, He discarded the proposal that the Chinese considered viable: the extension from Calle 72 to Calle 100.
WEATHER – BOGOTA
