Gabriel Boric’s railway project generates controversy in Chile

Chilean President Gabriel Boric announced the construction of a train that will link Santiago with Valparaíso, as part of the National Railway Development Plan.

The ambitious project, which could start operating in 2030, does not seem to please everyone and the first criticisms arose.

The railway project will connect the Quinta Normal commune in the Chilean capital with El Salto, Viña del Mar sector, on a trip that will cover 172 kilometers in 90 minutes and will pass through four other towns.

Part of the existing railway infrastructure will be used, thereby reducing costs. In a first stage, US$1.32 billion will be invested and US$3.82 billion will be reached to finish the project.

The mayor of Valparaíso, Jorge Sharp, criticized that the project does not reach his city, but only as far as El Salto, in Viña del Mar.

“12 kilometers were missing. The train announced by the Government arrives in Viña del Mar and not Valparaíso. If our city is not included in the final design, we will be facing a new sign of the abandonment of the State of Chile to Valparaíso,” wrote the authority on his Twitter account.

Critics of the project also question whether there is a saving of time compared to traveling by car or bus.

“It’s not competitive,” Alejandra Valencia, an academic at the School of Construction and Transportation Engineering at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, told Emol.

However, Valencia pointed out that the project has a salient point that favors the towns in the interior of the Fifth Region that have a poor connection and depend on the bus service to go to the capital.

Francisco Riquelme, mayor of Casablanca, Valparaíso commune, does not view the project favorably: “There is high expectation, but the layout proposal is almost the same as the one that disappeared years ago.”

He criticized that the plan does not contemplate “a mixed passenger and cargo component” that links the port of Valparaíso with Santiago. He also assured that it will be faster to travel on Route 68, which connects the capital with Valparaíso.

In this same sense, Germán Correa, former Minister of Transportation of the Government of Patricio Aylwin (1990-1994), assured in an interview with Radio and Diario Universidad de Chile that the layout of the project is not new and that it is a “renovation” of the existing infrastructure.

He also warned that “the technical quality of the track is useless” in case new trains must be used.

Chile does not have “a national railway development policy where there is a comprehensive vision regarding cargo transport, passenger transport,” nor an intermodality like the one Europe has to apply in the country, Correa criticized.

“It is not a new passenger train project to Valparaíso, as there have been other public and private proposals that have occurred in the past,” said the former minister and expressed his doubts that the project be carried out within the announced times and costs.

With information from Sputnik

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