Mexico's Maya Train Makes Debut on the Yucatán Peninsula
On the right track or off the rails?
Tren Maya, a high-caliber, high-cost infrastructure project connecting both the eastern and western coasts of the Yucatán Peninsula while crossing five states in southeastern Mexico inaugurated its first phase of the 1,525 kilometers of railway tracks December 15.
Beginning in Cancun and ending in the Gulf city of Campeche, Mexican President Andrés López Obrador (Amlo), projected the train will provide travelers an alternative to driving long distances between major attractions on the Peninsula and initiate new jobs in the process, lifting the economy of southeastern Mexico.
With one phase partially ready (the inaugural debut) and two still incomplete, the $28 billion dollar train, originally estimated to cost $9.8 billion USD, remains highly controversial. When complete, the railway will feature 34 stations in five states.
Depending on who you talk to, it’s either “the greatest railway project built anywhere in the world,” (Amlo) or “an attack on the environment and the Mayan identity,” (Pedro Uc, member of the Assembly of Mayan Territory Defenders, Múuch X’ilinbal).
The feat promised by Amlo has been both lauded and maligned
At first the cries were but a whimper, with conservationists, the occasional archeologist, or Riviera Maya environmentalist sounding alarm. But now, after nearly three years of ongoing construction and forest purge, the cries of elimination and contamination have been heard from as far off as The South China Post, Japan Times and New Delhi Times to newspapers much closer to home. This feat promised by the Mexican president has been both lauded and maligned.
The Riviera Maya, which the train passes through, is the largest jungle in the Americas after the Amazon, and the 947 miles of tracks resulted in cutting 3.4 million trees, according to the Mexican government. Environmentalists suggest the actual number is closer to 10 million, as reported by The Guardian.
With little transparency and a delinquent lack of geological testing, environmentalists, archeologists, locals, and even the U.N., have voiced concern that the railway and its hasty construction will critically endanger pristine wilderness, bringing civilization closer to vulnerable species such as jaguars and bats.
Fragile ecosystems at stake
The Mayan Train route cuts a swath 14 meters (46 feet) wide through some of the world's most unique ecosystems. A fragile system of cenotes, as well as underground rivers that lie beneath the jungle floor, are distinct to the Yucatán. Cenotes are fresh water sinkholes sacred to the Maya but also an intrinsic part of their present day water requirements.
The tracks will pass above a system of thousands of subterranean caves carved by water from the region's soft limestone bedrock over millions of years. Activists fear the train tracks built on top of these honeycomb-like cave networks could collapse, stated the BBC, World News/Latin America.
The railway will utilize both diesel and electric trains. "If built badly, the railway could break through the fragile ground, including into yet-to-be discovered caves," said Mexican geochemist Emiliano Monroy-Rios of Northwestern University, in agreement with the BBC. He has extensively studied the area's caves and cenotes.
“Damage could limit important geological discoveries . . .”
"Diesel," he added, "could also leak into the network of subterranean pools and rivers, a main source of fresh water on the Peninsula." With less than 20 percent of the subterranean system believed to have been mapped, according to several scientists interviewed by Reuters, such damage could limit important geological discoveries.
“An underground water system allowed humans to survive for millennia.”
In 2022, López Obrador wanted to finish the entire project in 16 months by filling the caves with cement or by sinking concrete columns though the caverns to support the weight of the passing trains. This could block or contaminate the underground water system, the only thing that allowed humans to survive in a land of fickle rainfall for millennia, reported The Chicago Sun-Times.
"I rely on water from a cenote to wash dishes and bathe," said Mario Basto, a resident of Vida y Esperanza, a pueblo that lies parallel to the tracks, 15 miles inland from Playa del Carmen, who was interviewed by NBC Latino.
Early on, July 2020, researchers from 65 Mexican and 26 international institutions signed "Observations on the Environmental Impact Assessment of the Mayan Train" claiming it would cause "serious and irreversible harm."
“When you destroy territory, you destroy a way of thinking, a way of seeing . . .”
Said one environmentalist, "When you destroy territory, you destroy a way of thinking, a way of seeing, a way of life, a way of explaining the reality that is part of our identity as Mayan peoples.”
Though Amlo’s gigantic railway enterprise has plenty of naysayers, his well-wishers heartily agree with the gambles he’s taken, believing as does he that the train will modernize this part of Mexico, bringing progress and jobs.
When his signature project completes, will it be a boom or a bust? Only time will tell. Updates to come.
Thanks for the restack!
Thank you for articulating well the complex challenges and conundrum of the Tren Maya. Having lived in Yucatan for a year and a half...yes, the ecosystem is fragile there, there is still a lot of poverty among the Mayans, and the cenotes are a rare and precious thing, that I hope will not be adversely affected by the train. I cannot see how the train will bring more good than harm, but may it be so.
And a project estimated at 9.8 billion costing 28 billion instead...that is one heck of a cost overrun! AMLO has proclaimed how much economic growth it will bring....time will tell. Not seeing it yet. To my knowledge, most of the people hired for construction were NOT from the area...they were brought in and work for large companies based elsewhere in Mexico. One result of these workers coming in, at least in Progreso and I hear, in other parts of Yucatan has been to create more congestion and drive up housing prices. I have heard that various Mayan artifacts were discovered during the excavation and I hope they are handled appropriately. Thank you for this excellent article. PS I am a new Substacker myself and will be writing about my own adventures in Mexico and a whole lot more. I moved to the central highlands this past summer. Happy to find you writing here.