The Alstom consortium, which includes Thales, Sofratesa, CIM and TSO, have been awarded the €145m contract to supply rolling stock and works to expand trainsets on Panama Metro Line 1. Alstom will supply 70 Metropolis cars for €130m, while also supply onboard and lineside Urbalis 400 CBTC signalling equipment, upgrade the power supply, and enlarge the depot.
Construction has begun on Santo Domingo’s first cable car line which will have five stations and run over five kilometres, and, according to government estimates, will benefit around 287,000 residents. In an official government statement officials affirmed that the ‘Teleférico Santo Domingo’ will “to defend and dignify the lives of thousands of people living in La Barquita and its surroundings.”
Governments, metro operators and leading technology innovators from all over Latin America will meet in Medellin on 26-28 April 2016 to exchange experiences and identify strategies to improve urban transport in the region. With two days of technical and strategies presentations, followed by a site visit to Metro de Medellin, the event will help identify solutions to the challenges facing senior decision makers all over the region.
Panamanian president Juan Carlos Varela met with executives from Alstom, supplier of Panama Metro rolling stock, to announce the possible development of a new light rail line, linking Panama City to Chririqui. Varela met with Alstom CEO Patrick Kron to discuss current projects and available options for expanding Line 2 of the Panama Metro, as well as Line 3 and further expansion.
The Venezuelan National Executive has approved a further US$50 million, to continue work on the light rail connection between Guarenas and Guatire in the Miranda area of the country. The project, lead by Metro de Caracas and Odebrecht, is expected to be completed in 2016. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro explained that the US$50 million investment will contribute towards the total US$150 required for the project.
Seventy years in the making, the scheduled construction of Bogota’s first metro line has been delayed yet again in the face of financial woes. The $3.3 million set aside for the project are now frozen in the bank, just as the country is experiencing an economic deceleration which will lead to budget cutbacks in 2016. To add more difficulty, the recent hike in the dollar has further increased the project’s expenses.
“We desire a more secure city, with better mobility, faster, more comfortable, with projects for its development that compete with the best cities of Latin America, for the city of which we and our children are proud,” Peñalosa has promised. These commitments will center around the development of the capital’s new metro network, albeit with a number of key amendments.
The Office for the Reorganization of Transport (Opret) this week announced that Line 2 construction work is nearing completion and network testing is expected to begin within the next 6 months. Opret deputy director Leonel Carrasco said that a tunnel, which has been constructed as part of the works, has been a particularly complicated undertaking, has now been fully constructed.
Metro de Medellin today put the new tram network into operation, as General Manager Claudia Restrepo explained plans for Metro de Medellin to continue expanding and innovating the region’s transport network, which now incorporates metro, cablecar, tram, buses, public bike rental, urban escalators and BRT systems, with monorail the latest technology to be discussed.
El Presidente de la República, Juan Carlos Varela, en compañía del Ministro para Asuntos del Canal y Director del Metro de Panamá, Ing. Roberto Roy, y el equipo técnico del Consorcio Línea 2, dio inicio a los trabajos de construcción de la Línea 2 del Metro de Panamá, que en su primera etapa tendrá una longitud de 21 kilómetros de vía elevada y contará con 16 estaciones.
