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Maya Train will run parallel to Playa del Carmen overpasses

Playa del Carmen, Q.R. — “The Maya Train will cross Playa del Carmen parallel to the current vehicular bridge on the sea side, while the underpasses will be areas for shops, recreational activities, parking lots and bike path connections,” reports a member of Fonatur.

Raúl Bermúdez Arreola, delegate of the National Fund for Tourism Promotion (Fonatur), added that from Cancun to Playa del Carmen, there will be a highway expansion to three lanes and the train will run on two tracks (round trip) in the middle.

“When arriving at Playa del Carmen, it changes a lot (…) it becomes a more complex engineering work because the train is elevated,” he explained adding that at the entrance to Playa del Carmen near Xel Há Avenue, the train will begin to rise. “A train has a slope to be able to go up or down by one percent, so this ramp is approximately 600 meters to get the train up to a height of 5.50 meters.”

Arriving at the height of Avenida Petempich, which is more or less where the current bridge begins, it is where the train deviates to the sea side, “elevated, above the low lane and from there it goes through all of Playa del Carmen until reaching Avenida 41 Sur (at the height of the Maya Center), all on the side of the low lane on the sea side.”

At 41 South, the vehicular bridge ceases to exist and the train returns to the center or the median. From Playa del Carmen to Tulum, the plan continues with the two current lanes. “There is no level crossing, no traffic lights, everything is elevated,” he said.

He added that “there will be 2.8 kilometers of underpasses that will be turned into part of the Maya Train station and we are going to develop many social areas in this space.” He says that Fonatur personnel are in talks with the municipality to determine the use of these social areas, such as skating parks, parking lots and bicycle paths to the tourist areas “and above all and more importantly, to the area where the people of Solidaridad live so that they can access the stations of the Maya Train.”

Bermúdez Arreola stated that “a double project is taking place, one, the highway expansion and on the other hand there is the tender for the train infrastructure, which will take place about 20 days later.”

The current highway “will be a functional and highly mobile boulevard,” said Bermúdez Arreola, who explained that at the Moon Palace overpass, the current bridge will be demolished. “The road solution implies that we eliminate the highway bridge in the main body which is Highway 307 and we make small but very assertive bridges and much more beautiful.

“Instead of not very functional bridges, we are going to modernize the road, improve circulation, improve mobility and make them greener. Instead of pure concrete, they are going to be very showy, green areas….(and have) pedestrian crossings in the areas with the most traffic accidents.”