Mexico juggles conflicts to push ahead with 2 infra projects

The Mexican government has managed to continue work on two of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s signature projects despite legal and social obstacles. 

One concerns the fifth stretch of the Maya train, running 121km from Cancún to Tulum in Quintana Roo state, and the other is the 8.2bn-peso (US$377mn) Barranca Larga-Ventanilla toll road between Oaxaca city and Puerto Escondido in Oaxaca state.

Regarding the railway, López Obrador said during his morning press conference on Monday that work in the Yucatán Peninsula jungle continues despite injunctions. 

“It does not affect anything. We keep working,” he said after being questioned about the ongoing legal battle that threatens to halt the passenger rail project.

Last week, environmental NGO Sélvame del Tren claimed that a district judge in Yucatán state had granted it an injunction to stop all deforestation works on the northern and southern sections of the stretch, work on which has been underway since last year.

Many other court orders to halt work on the 1,500km line have been granted by federal and district judges since construction began over three years ago, but the government has managed to dodge over 50 injunctions so far, national tourism board Fonatur director Javier May said on his Twitter account last Thursday. 

“The inauguration will be in December 2023,” he said, reiterating that the first five stretches of the line will be finished this year. 

Oaxaca-Puerto Escondido highway 

Meanwhile, the communications and transportation ministry (SICT) announced Sunday that landowners in the San Vicente Coatlán municipality where the 170km Barranca Larga-Ventanilla road will cross accepted López Obrador’s proposal and allowed works to continue. 

The president announced last month that “an old agrarian conflict between Sola de Vega and San Vicente Coatlán” municipalities was stalling work on the remaining 15km of the highway. 

“We made a good proposal to the [landowners],” he said on Twitter, adding that if the problem is not solved in a month, “we will make a new route, a bypass for other communities.”

In response, the landowners said in a letter to the president: “We have decided through the community assembly to continue all the works on the superhighway, with its monthly reviews and evaluations to verify the progress and the solution of the agrarian, social, violence and peace conflict.”

Planning for the Barranca Larga-Ventanilla toll road started a decade ago, but the government reactivated the project in 2019 with the launch of construction tenders. Separate contracts for two subsections were awarded to local firms Vise and Coconal.

In November, López Obrador said the road would be finished by August 2023. 

The highway will reduce travel time between the coastal localities from six to two hours. It involves 10 bridges, two viaducts, three tunnels, nine junctions and five emergency ramps.