Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
id576985374
the Fourth Transformation’s motto, “For the benefit of all, the poor come first,” means a special attention to the south. This region has received unprecedented public investment since AMLO took office, while key national interventions have also had a special emphasis there,
id577291624
Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life), a rural program to improve food self-sufficiency and alleviate poverty. Sembrando Vida pays and assists farmers to implement agroecological systems, which include traditional maize cultivation as well as fruit and timber. In the five states touched by the Tren Maya (Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo) the program benefits 170,000 peasants and has resulted in the reforestation of 400,000 hectares.
id577291650
built over 170 high-quality public spaces in municipalities along the route of the train and is also coproducing housing upgrades benefiting tens of thousands of low-income families. In many towns along the route, there are new community centers, parks, libraries, sporting grounds and museums. Many communities have also gained internet access, for free
✏️ This and the jobs are all reviving local economies in the places that the government promised to help. 🔗 View Highlight
id577291653
together with hundreds of thousands of construction jobs on the Tren Maya project itself and associated infrastructure
id577291667
The idea that the Tren Maya is a megaproject aimed at benefiting large capitalists at the expense of local people—as it has been portrayed by critics—is difficult to credit.
✏️ So this is where we’re getting conflicting arguments. US media seems to not like the Mexican president, and accusations are being spread that the project is only good for large capitalists. Also, who started calling it the Megaproject of Death? Locals or media? followup And yet the above highlights show the positive effects this project is having on a major neglected segment of the country. 🔗 View Highlight
id577292648
it was the first time in Mexico’s history that the Indigenous inhabitants had ever been consulted—and since then, there have been numerous consultations to ensure that local voices are heard.
id577292681
For example, in the south of Campeche, where the aquifer runs deep underground, access to water has been a long struggle. In the town of Xpujil, the fear that urbanization would be accelerated by the Tren Maya heightened such concerns. As a result of the process of Indigenous consultation, the federal government committed to guarantee the human right to water and is rehabilitating the 90-kilometer López Mateos-Xpujil aqueduct, benefiting more than 30,000 inhabitants in the Calakmul municipality. Work on the aqueduct will be completed this November.
✏️ An example of the project actually listening to the indigenous people being affected by the project and providing them with answers to their concerns. 🔗 View Highlight
id577292879
Construction of Tramo 5, the most controversial section that runs along the Riviera Maya between Cancún and Tulum, has been radically modified to protect archaeological remains and the hundreds of caves, cenotes (sinkholes) and underground rivers the railway would cross. The Sac-Aktun system, for instance, is the largest underwater cave system on the planet, and its uniqueness and fragility became the focus of Sélvame del Tren (Save me from the train), a well-known campaign against the project. However, a significant part of Tramo 5 will now be raised above ground through elevated viaducts, including a 290-metre suspension bridge—an adaptation that also enhances biological connectivity between the two sides of the railway. These elevated viaducts are a remarkable feat of engineering informed by hydrogeological studies and accompanied by teams of biologists, who have introduced ways to reduce impact on flora and fauna. Reforestation, wherever possible, has already started. Claims that cenotes are being filled with cement and that the viaducts’ concrete pillars will pollute the waters are simply untrue.
✏️ Another example of modifying the project to protect the nature and the remains. 🔗 View Highlight
id577293052
the concern over the integrity of the underground water system that feeds much of the Yucatán peninsula is real. Such threats, however, have more to do with unplanned urbanization, inadequate sanitation, and polluting economic activities such as mono cropping and industrial pig farming.
✏️ So this is interesting. There is an existent problem with the water due to other long-standing issues unrelated to the train. This includes unplanned urbanization, expanding tourism and rise of solid wastes. 🔗 View Highlight
id577293149
Constitutionally, non-federal lands are regulated at the local level, and it is precisely because of the Tren Maya that a political agreement was reached in 2021 between the federal government and the states and municipalities affected by the project in order to produce a regional program of territorial planning. It is highly ambitious, but it is the most significant effort of the Mexican State to create a new model of development for the region that is both environmentally sustainable and socially just.
✏️ Even though the politics of it was hairy, because those lands are regulated locally, the government and the local offices worked together to agree on a way to figure out better planning that’s more sustainable and socially just. 🔗 View Highlight
id577293620
Other concerns have to do with the tourism industry, which the train project aims to expand inland in the Yucatán peninsula and toward the states of Tabasco and Chiapas. While tourism generates jobs and much needed opportunities, it is also highly predatory, and the State has few mechanisms to limit, for instance, the purchase of the communally owned (ejido) farmland that still makes up half of the Yucatán peninsula by private actors. The government’s stated aim of wanting to avoid repeating the Cancún model sounds great—and could well be sincere—but powerful actors will, as always, seek opportunities to reap the benefits.
✏️ The increase in tourism is going to bring with it predatory actors wanting to buy up farmlands and stuff in order to exploit the tourism angle. They’re working on it, but the efforts are stagnating. 🔗 View Highlight
id577293937
the role of the military in the construction and operation of the train. Critics, who live mostly in central Mexico, the United States, or Europe, insist that this is a sign of “Mexico’s militarization”
✏️ One of the controversies, depending on which side of the line you’re looking at this issue from. The military constructing and operating the train. 🔗 View Highlight
id577294199
Mexico is redirecting its armed forces toward civic purposes, including the construction of airports and the modernization and management of ports. There are security concerns in the region as criminal groups increase their presence, and protecting these new infrastructure projects is necessary.
id577294224
In the 1990s, the country’s publicly owned and operated 23,000-kilometer railroad network was privatized, resulting in the disappearance of all passenger trains. With the Ministry of Defense having a stake in the operation of the Tren Maya, any attempt to privatize it will face significant opposition.
✏️ Historically, they were bitten by privatization and they’re trying to avoid that issue again here. 🔗 View Highlight
id577294321
The public operation of the Tren Maya also means that this modern and efficient mode of transport will remain affordable for the local population. The ecological merits are significant. Passages for wildlife are practically nonexistent in Mexico’s roads and highways. Tren Maya contemplates more than 400 of them. Nearly half of the route will be fully electric, with the remaining part using hybrid engines running on ultra-low emission diesel produced in the Dos Bocas refinery in Tabasco. The trains—42 of them—are being built by a consortium led by Alstom-Bombardier in the state of Hidalgo, creating thousands of jobs and developing a rail industry in one of Mexico’s poorest states.
✏️ All the benefits.
- Public operation keeps it affordable
- Using electric/hybrid engines means better ecological concerns
- Construction is being done locally, and in the poorest states, bringing many jobs 🔗 View Highlight