Mexico City, Mexico — President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says the Maya Train will be finished by the end of 2023, noting his government is “giving it their all” to get it done.
In a morning conference, AMLO said the 1,554-kilometer long project will consist of 19 train stations that will be located in Palenque, Tenosique, El Triunfo, Escárcega, Edzná, Campeche, Mérida, Izamal, Chichén-Itzá, Valladolid, Nuevo Xcán, Cancun Airport, Puerto Morelos, Playa del Carmen, Tulum, Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Bacalar, Chetumal and Xpujil.
“We must finish by the end of 2023, that’s why we are working with everything,” emphasized the president adding that Mota-Engil, Grupo Carso, Grupo INDI and ICA have made important progress in the construction of their respective sections.
The loop of train tracks will allow users to travel through the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo, pointing out that the project will not intervene or damage the ecosystem, specifically in the southeast portion of the country.
One of the benefits that the Maya Train will bring, he said, is the construction of the Tulum International Airport, which when done, will have the capacity to receive four million tourists.
He said that these projects, together with the rehabilitation of the Port of Coatzacoalcos and the Ixtepec highway that connects with the limits of Guatemala, will help to detonate development in the south.
“This was the forgotten region,” he said stressing “that’s why they left the railroad tracks unprivatized, they weren’t interested in it and it turns out that there is a lot of poverty, that there are many needs, so now there’s federal public investment.”
“This does not mean to say that it is going to stop serving the center or the north, but that it is balancing, serving the south-southeast,” he clarified.
