Skip to main content

Bogota's metro tender delayed

The tender for Bogota, Colombia’s decades-long and much-delayed first metro line has been pushed to the first quarter of 2015 following expansion of the US$3.6 billion project. The original project included the construction of the first line of Bogota’s 26.5 kilometre long metro, which would have 28 stations and be used by around 600,000 people a day. This is the first of four lines planned to be built in the next 30 years. The metro will complement the existing urban transport system by handling 50 p
July 25, 2014 Read time: 2 mins

The tender for Bogota, Colombia’s decades-long and much-delayed first metro line has been pushed to the first quarter of 2015 following expansion of the US$3.6 billion project.

The original project included the construction of the first line of Bogota’s 26.5 kilometre long metro, which would have 28 stations and be used by around 600,000 people a day. This is the first of four lines planned to be built in the next 30 years.

The metro will complement the existing urban transport system by handling 50 per cent of passengers at peak hours. Construction of the line was due to begin in 2015 and be completed by end-2018 or early 2019.

However, studies unveiled an environmental problem at the site where the maintenance and repair plant was to be built. Officials are currently looking for a different location, urban development institute head William Camargo has said. The change in plans led authorities to expand the metro line by four kilometres, to 30 kilometres with 31 stations.

"The extension will require two to three more months in order to end the year with the complete project design," Camargo said.

He said construction works could begin by the end of 2015 or early 2016.

Related Content

  • Low-carbon mobility, one village at a time
    July 15, 2024
    Shantha Bloemen of Mobility for Africa, winner of this year's Movmi Empower Women in Shared Mobility Award, talks to Beate Kubitz about creative and practical solutions for transportation in the world’s rural areas – and why investment is still needed
  • Japan to overhaul Cambodia’s traffic signals
    August 26, 2014
    Japan’s development organisation, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which has worked hard to alleviate Cambodia’s traffic woes, is to overhaul the capital’s traffic light system in a further bid to reduce the gridlock. Cambodia’s economy has boomed over the last decade, the broad French-built boulevards and backstreets of Phnom Penh have become bottlenecks, while at peak times, the town centre becomes gridlocked. Over the next few years, the JICA plans to redesign and rebuild the city
  • Public Private Partnerships to gather pace in the US
    April 29, 2015
    Public Private Partnerships are set to play a big role in transportation funding as Andrew Bardin Williams discovers. The old joke goes that the road from New York to Chicago is paved with potholes. For decades, drivers from New York and New Jersey traveling across Pennsylvania to visit the Midwest have lambasted the Commonwealth’s roadways for their lack of smooth pavement.
  • Priority boosts ridership and cuts congestion
    May 4, 2016
    Transit priority is proving a win-win in Europe and Australia. David Crawford reports. Technology that integrates with the Australian-originated Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS) is driving bus signal priority and performance analysis initiatives on both sides of the world; in its homeland, with a major deployment in 2015, and in the capital of the Republic of Ireland.