This Tuesday morning, Mayor Claudia López, along with Leonidas Narváez, the Manager of Bogotá Metro Company (EMB), and Wen Ding, Legal Representative of Metro Line 1, signed the agreement to start the construction phase of the viaduct for Bogotá's First Metro Line.
The ceremony took place at the workshop yard in the Bosa district.
"Today marks the beginning of constructing the 24 kilometers of viaduct for our First Metro Line. It's wonderful news for Bogotá and I want to emphasize that the Metro Network we are building starts here at the workshop yard in the Bosa district, extends to 72nd Avenue in the Chapinero district, with feeder roads including Ciudad de Cali and 68 Avenues, both currently under construction and the Séptima Green Corridor, whose bidding will open next Monday, July 31st," explained Mayor Claudia López.
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The Mayor also pointed out that, with the act we just signed today, six new work fronts will begin, in addition to those already underway at the 68th Avenue and Primera de Mayo bridge, 72nd Avenue, Caracas Avenue, and the workshop yard. In total, there will be nine simultaneous work fronts, with four of them equipped with a pile driver - a technology never before used in Colombia - to secure the piles to the ground. This will enable the construction of beams, tracks, and lanes for public and mixed traffic transportation, as well as a cycle path and public space.
The Bogotá Metro's First Line has reached a progress of 24.23%, which includes the workshop yard construction, the vehicular interchange at 72nd Avenue and Caracas Avenue, and the building of the new vehicular bridge on the northern side of Primero de Mayo Avenue and Carrera 68.
These achievements are complemented by other crucial activities, such as land acquisition, the relocation of major utility networks, and the advance in the construction of trains cars at factories in China, overseen by the Metro Line 1 Concessionaire. Each construction and production front has the necessary detailed engineering for its development.
In this tweet, the Mayor talks about the progress of the First Line of the Bogotá Metro:
Hoy empezamos la construcción de 24Km de viaducto, que junto a la alimentadora de la Cali, la 68 y el Corredor Verde 7ma constituyen las 4 obras de la Línea 1 del @MetroBogota! Y en China avanza la construcción de los 30 trenes.
— Claudia López Hernández (@ClaudiaLopez) July 25, 2023
Cumplimos! Para que en 2028 estrenos nuestro metro!… pic.twitter.com/GZTFjoU7OF
As the Mayor mentioned, with the signing of this act, work begins on six new fronts located along the 24 kilometers of the viaduct, where the 30 trains of the Bogotá Metro's First Line will operate. Four of these fronts will house pile drivers, impressive machines responsible for driving the piles into the ground to support the viaduct. It's worth mentioning that these piles are being manufactured in Bogotá, thanks to a state-of-the-art factory that the Metro Line 1 Consortium built and equipped in just four months. The factory has the capacity to produce one kilometer of piles per day and is located at the workshop yard in the Bosa district.
According to the established project timeline, by December 2023, when this Administration ends, the progress will reach 35%, and by June 2024, at the end of the current District Development Plan, it will be approximately 42%.
"We have a critical urgency in the work we are doing because the first train must arrive in August 2025 for testing. By September 2027, we need to have 4,000 linear meters of viaduct constructed for this train to begin operations, and the testing phase will start. All of this is to ensure that the commercial operation of the Metro begins in March 2028," stated Leonidas Narváez, the Manager of EMB.
Wen Ding, the legal representative of Metro Line 1, expressed, "Today is a very exciting moment as we have been working on this project for almost three years, which is of great importance to the city, and we will continue striving to fulfill this dream for Bogotá."
The signing of the construction phase act comes after EMB and the Metro Line 1 Consortium signed Transaction Contract No. 1, an Alternative Mechanism for the Resolution of Contractual Disputes, which settles all controversies arising from the non-compliance process initiated by EMB on May 9, 2023. As part of this agreement, the company and the Consortium have reached the following resolutions:
- The Consortium accepts the payment of a fine in the amount of one billion eight hundred eighty-five million pesos ($1,885,000,000) for not having obtained the No Objection of the entirety of the Detailed Studies and Designs by the scheduled date of March 30, 2023.
- The Consortium agrees to acknowledge the damages caused to the Oversight Entity for staying in an evaluation state of studies beyond the established timeline.
- EMB and the Consortium waive any judicial or administrative action related to the subject of the transactional agreement.
It is essential to remember that the construction of Bogotá's First Metro Line remains at $22.3 trillion pesos, a value established in 2017 and defined in the Co-financing Agreement signed between Bogotá and the Colombian Nation. Furthermore, the contract signed with Metro Line 1 Consortium results from an international public bidding process that is not subject to modifications, and the offered value covers all activities required to deliver the First Metro Line of Bogotá for commercial operation by March 2028.
You can watch here the video of the signing of the act to begin the construction phase of Metro Line 1 viaduct:
