A first leg of the Maya Train, President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador's controversial tourism project, was inaugurated on the Yucatán Peninsula on Friday with a promise to develop one of Mexico's poorest regions despite opposition from environmentalists.
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The first phase of this colossal project spans 473 km connecting the colonial city of Campeche and the seaside resort of Cancun, the country's top tourist destination with 34 million foreign visitors between January and October, according to official figures.
In total, the project's seven sections will cover 1,554 km around the peninsula, a region rich in Mayan flora, fauna and archaeological sites such as Chichén Itza. The others are expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2024.
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“It is a gigantic project,” welcomed President Lopez Obrador, emphasizing that the work had been completed “in record time” five years before the end of his term in office (2018-2024).
This inauguration comes six months before the presidential election, which polls show favors the left with the candidacy of former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, who will face former opposition senator Xochitl Galvez.
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Claudia Sheinbaum welcomed the Mayan train as “a strategic work that represents the rebirth of deep Mexico.”
Tickets went on sale. A trip from Cancun to Merida (300 km) costs between 735 and 1,173.50 pesos (or between 43 and 68 US dollars).
The government originally budgeted nearly $9 billion for this project, which began five years ago, but the Mexican Competitiveness Institute (IMCO) estimates it has increased to $30 billion.
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“Ecocide”
The management of the train was assigned by the President to the Defense Secretariat (Ministry), which relies on the army to finance these major projects, which include a new airport in northern Mexico that will be inaugurated in 2022, in order to fight corruption.
The train, whose carriages were built by the French company Alstom at its factory in central Mexico, Ciudad Sahagun, represents one of the most important infrastructure projects of Mr. Lopez Obrador's government.
Mexico's first leftist president says the project, which will include freight cars in a second phase, will boost the economy in the country's southeast, a region lagging behind the industrialized north bordering the U.S.
Before the inauguration, the president said that the project, combining electric and biodiesel trains, would have a multiplier effect on the rest of Mexico, noting that several inputs would be produced locally.
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The train route covers parts of the paradisiacal Riviera Maya, which includes a jungle region considered the second largest forest reserve in Latin America after the Amazon, as well as underground rivers and cenotes, networks of underground freshwater reservoirs of great historical and tourist value.
Environmentalists say the project damages the ecosystem and threatens “ecocide.” They launched legal action that temporarily halted work carried out by the army and private companies on a 130 km section between Cancu and Tulum.
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In particular, Greenpeace and other NGOs have warned that the train threatens to contaminate cenotes and underground rivers and impact flora and fauna.
President Lopez Obrador responded to these allegations with a decree declaring that this infrastructure work was a matter of “national security,” and construction resumed.
He also pledged to plant millions of trees in affected areas, while the website Animal Politico reported in February that 3.4 million trees had been felled.