Less than a month after Gustavo Petro takes office as the new president of Colombia, a cloud of uncertainty still persists in the environment about what may happen with the construction of the first line of the Bogotá metro.
While campaigning and being a candidate for the Historical Pact, Petro fed doubts about the continuity of this important mobility project, by proposing a review of the current contract and leaving in the air the possibility of reviving the underground metro that he himself promoted as mayor. from the country’s capital.
“Until now there are no studies, until today the company that hired Peñalosa, of Chinese origin, has not presented elevated metro studies and, while they do not present studies, there are no values, amounts. We don’t even know what that 70% is (which the Nation must finance) and if it can or cannot be done,” Petro stated at the time.
He indicated that, if he reaches the Presidency, he would form a commission to study the feasibility of continuing with the elevated metro.
“If these studies do not advance during these months and we come to the reality of a new government, then we create a commission to talk with the Chinese company and the Chinese government, to verify why the studies have not advanced. If they have even partial studies, compare them with the studies of the underground metro and make the most favorable cost/benefit decision for the city of Bogotá,” added Petro.
Upon winning the presidential elections, the president-elect effectively formed a specific junction commission only for the Bogotá metro and the coordinator of this commission, Daniel Rojas, has increased doubts about what the future of this project will be.
In an interview with national media, Rojas showed the concern that the new government has with the metro and, although he stated that the commitment is to provide the city with the best possible metro, he made it clear that the continuity of the project will depend on what the government says. Ministry of Finance on the co-financing of 70%.
“If this co-financing corresponds to what the detailed engineering studies say, we would have the subway on rails, but if not, the Nation would be committing a large part of its resources to something that does not know how much it is worth”, he specified.
Faced with these doubts that exist in the environment, WEEK sought out the manager of the Bogotá Metro Company, Leónidas Narváez, to know exactly what the real progress of the studies and detailed designs of the first line is.
“The Metro Line 1 SAS Concessionaire has been carrying out detailed engineering, the main result of which are construction plans and documents, developed based on its particular construction procedures and manufacturing lines. Both the proponents and the successful bidder, from the beginning of the contracting process, had the advanced basic engineering design, delivered to them according to contractual conditions”, he assured at first.
Next, he specified: “In the active work fronts, such as the Workshop Patio and the 72nd Street road interchange, the detailed designs are 100%. Based on the above, the progress percentage of the detailed engineering with a cutoff date of June 15, 2022 is 68.18%”.
Narváez specified that the concessionaire has scheduled delivery dates that are being met according to the schedule and 100% of the designs required will be available by December 2022, which would allow work to start, as contemplated in the contract, in January 2023.
In that order of ideas, faced with the possibility that the new government stops the financing of the elevated metro, manager Narváez was blunt in warning that “The Bogota Metro Company is a technical entity. As technicians, we can say that we have a robust contract”.
Finally, in relation to how the junction with the new government has been progressing in this matter, Narváez pointed out: “The position of the Metro Company in the meetings held with the incoming national government commission was to provide detailed information on the project and its development, showing the degree of structuring, the characteristics of a consolidated concession contract, duly financed, with the participation of multilateral banks and international entities that have evaluated the project and made the decision to participate.
The truth is that President-elect Gustavo Petro has the last word and as of August 7 the true future of the work will begin to be decided.