Engineers said it would take 15 years to build the Maya Train – the flagship infrastructure project of Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. But on Friday the first section is due to open after just five.
The government has framed the £16bn tourist and cargo train, which it hopes will kickstart the economy of the south-east, as the express delivery of social justice to one of the country’s poorest regions.
Critics say the project was forced through by use of the military and national security decrees, without proper environmental impact studies or consultations of those who live there.
“The president has an idea of development that is from the mid-20th century,” said Ana Esther Ceceña, an economist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “There is no way to build a train like this without bulldozing the local ways of life.”
But despite protests and court orders to stop construction, the project proved unstoppable. The first section of the track will run from Campeche to Cancún. The government claims the whole circuit will be operational by the end of February 2024.
It will loop through five states that contain many of Mexico’s archaeological treasures – not just from the Mayans, but also from civilisations that preceded them, such as the Olmec.
The government has argued the train will lure more tourists and investment to the region. The UN’s development office estimated it would lift 1.1 million people out of poverty by 2030.
Communities in the region are split: some welcome the investment, while others resent the imposition and question its benefits.
Although the government carried out consultations in the affected states in 2019, with the project receiving an almost 90% approval rating, the UN’s human rights office in Mexico said that they did not meet international standards.
It cited low turnout, the lack of translation of materials into Indigenous languages, and the partial or even false information about the possible negative impacts of the project.
“This is a project that was designed from a desk in Mexico City,” said Ceceña.
In the rush to complete the railway before López Obrador’s term ends in 2024, construction began before studies of its environmental impact were completed.
The studies that have since been published are limited, considering only the impact of the railways themselves, and neither the urbanisation nor the great number of tourists they will bring.
NGOs have flagged the potential environmental impacts, starting with how the tracks will dice up the Maya Forest – the second largest rainforest in Latin America.
“These [railway lines] are artificial borders for species like jaguars,” said Aarón Hernández Siller, from Cemda, an environmental NGO. “And they are so wide – more than 60 metres – that they are a border for certain seeds and spores, too.”
Another impact involves the system of subterranean caves and rivers that runs just beneath the surface of much of the peninsula and provides drinking water to its 5 million inhabitants.
The system is already under strain. Last year, Conagua, the state water agency, predicted the Yucatán peninsula was 15 years from a water crisis – before taking the train into account.
Then there’s the risk of collapse and contamination given that the ground is mostly made of porous limestone, and structurally fragile. “We’re talking about an underground that’s like a Swiss cheese,” said Hernández Siller. “Putting trains of hundreds if not thousands of tons on top – it could collapse the caves underneath.”
“In China, they spent 10 years doing studies before building a train in a zone like this,” added Hernández Siller. “Here, it was express. How can we be sure there won’t be an accident?”
The government has responded to criticisms by altering the route and building some sections on elevated platforms.
But it has also forced the project through by decree and militarisation, ignoring legal rulings and limiting the public disclosure of information.
“They’ve stigmatised anyone that has gone against them,” said Hernández Siller. “I’ve been on protests when we’ve suddenly found ourselves facing armed soldiers.”
In addition to patrolling, protecting and overseeing part of the train’s construction, the armed forces have now been tasked with operating it.
This reflects a trend during the administration of López Obrador, which has seen the portfolio of assets under military control swell to include civilian airports, maritime ports, the national customs agency and another new train line. Hotels, nature reserves and a passenger airline are due to follow.
“This militarisation is the biggest contradiction of this supposedly progressive government,” said Ivet Reyes Maturano, from Articulación Yucatán, an association of academics.
The Maya Train is just one part of a plan to transform the south-east of Mexico, along with a new airport in Tulum, the Dos Bocas oil refinery in Tabasco, and the interoceanic corridor, a port and train system that aims to compete with the Panama Canal in shuttling cargo between the Pacific and the Atlantic.
“[The Maya Train] itself isn’t just a passenger train,” said Hernández Siller. “It’s a cargo train. It’s part of a broader strategy for the region, to turn it into a logistical park.
“This is a vision that the people in the region were not told about, and have not agreed to,” added Hernández Siller. “They were told this is about social justice, when really it is all about economic ends – and ones that have little to do with them.”
All of this public investment has turbocharged GDP growth in certain states – but it remains to be seen whether that growth will endure once the projects are finished, and how the economic benefits will be distributed.
“It’s good that they have invested all these resources in the south-east,” said Ceceña. “But if only they had done it in a way that respected the region: its history, its customs, its ways of life.”
