Still not defined whether Mexibus will connect airports

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It is still not defined if the Mexibus will connect Santa Lucía Airport and Toluca International Airport in Mexico City.

To select the best alternative, feasibility studies are needed to diagnose the adequate options for each region, since in the Valley of Toluca one of the alternatives is the Interurban Train, informed Elim Luviano , director of the Massive Transport and Cableway System of the State of Mexico (SITRAMyTEM) .

“After the preliminary studies are done, we can talk of executive projects . We’re working on adjusting and having the reference terms, the technical annexes, everything that is needed for the bidding . I calculate that once the winner is declared, it will take from 4 to 6 months to have the results,” he declared.

Yesterday, EL UNIVERSAL published that the Mexibus would be the means of transportation to make the journey from Santa Lucía International Airport and Mexico City International Airports.

In interview with this newspaper, Luviano Heredia said that the bidding to start the studies is in charge of the Ministry of Communications and Transport (SCT) , although the date of publication has not been defined yet.

Nevertheless, he specified that in the project of Connectivity Through the Integration of the Mass Transportation Systems for the Metropolitan Airport System of the Valley of Mexico they are participating in regular meetings and holding a drawing board integrated by agencies from the federal and state governments.

“What we’re doing is to analyze the different options to achieve efficient connectivity ; this involves analyzing all the options from the development of new roads, innovative technologies of transportation, besides evaluating the expansion of the existing ones,” he specified.

He explained that the government of the State of Mexico eases the performing of the required diagnostics and chosen schemes, but the guardianship of the project for evaluating the feasibility is in charge of the General Directorate of Railway and Multimodal Transport of the SCT .

The initial approach, said the public officer, is to define the convenience of extending two of the existing lines of the Mexibus : Line 1 , which connect Ojo de Agua and Ciudad Azteca, and Line 4 , which will start its operation from Tecámac to Indios Verdes; hence, the studies to be bid will be directed towards defining the demand of the service and the trace that is needed to connect the Toluca and Mexico City airports .

Alternatives. In the case of the Valley of Toluca , the beginning of operations of the Interurban Train , in 2022, is added to the connectivity, but there is also the Mexico-Toluca Highway and the suspended works of the Naucalpan-Toluca Highway , which are options to communicate that region with the capital of the country.

Luviano Heredia detailed that defining whether the Mexibus will be how the three airports connect depends on the demand of the service and “that is a multifactorial topic,” since it obeys the distribution of airport policy that will land with the advance of the studies and works. Until now, there is only a calculation about the number of people that are mobilized by the Mexibus daily.

That is why, added the public officer, the feasibility study must indicate the number of people that would choose to use this means of transportation between airports and, at the same time, what must be done by the heads of the system to guarantee its optimal operation .

“We must make decisions about what infrastructure needs to be enhanced to guarantee full connectivity. In this case, we can be talking about new infrastructure that can be used later by transportation systems and guarantee there is connectivity between the three airports ,” he highlighted.

He said that they will know about financing once the corresponding studies are finished and the governor of the State of Mexico presents them to the federal executive branch.