The two neighbor
cities of Coquimbo and La Serena conform one of the main metropolitan centers
in Chile. They are both separated by 22km (14 miles) and they have a combined
population of more than 400 thousands habitants.
Many people
work in one city but live in the other, or in the many populated areas along
those more than 20 kilometers, and they are connected by just 2 roads: a main
road and the coastal road.
There are
about 500.000 daily travels between both cities, what causes that the main road
has a lot of congestion most of the day. In addition, the public transportation
in both cities consists in small buses and “taxis colectivos” (they are like
shared taxis, cars with a capacity of four people and fixed tours).
A few
months ago was presented to the Ministry of Public Works, as an unsolicited
proposal, a PPP project consisting in building a light rail between the two cities.
This intends to improve the public transportation between these cities, by
using modern and comfortable equipment, that is fast and doesn´t cause pollution.
This project has been commented in TV, newspapers and other media, as you can
see here, here
or here, just to show just a few examples.
The project
will use a strip of land that is already used by a cargo train, adding two
rails to the existent one. By doing this, it won´t interfere with cars, won´t
cause more congestion in the roads and actually will relieve it, because it
will allow buses and “taxis colectivos” to work as feeders for this new system.
Another benefit
of the project, a very relevant one, is that it will connect a neighborhood
called “Las Companias”, located north of La Serena, with the rest of the city
and the city of Coquimbo. Las Companias is a residential area, densely
populated by low income population and that is separated from the rest of the city
by the Elqui river (as can be seen in the next picture). It has a bridge that
connects both sides of the river, but it is heavily congested during peak
hours. Since a train bridge already exists (and is only used by a cargo train
that crosses it only twice a day), this project will take advantage of that and
will provide a faster and better connection using available resources.
This
project is also interesting because it will be the first public transportation
system built under the PPP mechanism in the country (you can see all the projects here) . Chile has a lot of experience
in PPPs (despite being not being a developed country, is classified under this
category in terms of their PPP by the World Bank, as can be seen in the
Infrascope index 2014 and in the PPP
Knowledge Bank website).
The country has PPPs in urban roads, highways, ports, airports, public
buildings and other infrastructure. It also has public transportation public
operators, but this project (along with a cable car under study) will be the
first one that will be composed by both operation and infrastructure.
The PPP
project will provide a fast and reliable public transportation as its main
service, but it also contemplates the building of car parking and intermodal
station, as well as bicycle parking, so it can be easily accessed by people who
want to combine this light train with other transportation alternatives.
Maybe you
are wondering why this has to be handled by a private corporation, considering
that similar alternatives, like trains and subways in different parts of the
country are state owned and they work well.
As I
mentioned before, this project was an unsolicited proposal, that is, the idea
of making this train came from a private company, and not from the state.
Additionally, under this mechanism all the feasibility studies will be
developed by this company, so we can be sure that they will work hard in order to
get the best possible project. It also needs to be taken under consideration that
this will be the first light train in Chile, so we don’t have engineers and
other specialist with significant experience in the field. The company that
presented the idea has a lot of experience as well as experts that will make sure
that this will be built with the best possible design, top quality equipment and
this will result in an efficient project that will make people´s life better,
and it will probably show to other cities of the country the benefits of this
type of public transportation.
