Line 12 of the Metro will return to service later this year, estimated the secretary of works of the CDMX, Jesús Esteva.
During a verification tour of the reinforcement works to the gold line – after on May 3 of last year a part of the elevated viaduct collapsed claiming the lives of 26 people – the official added that, according to his work schedule, the work will conclude next October, but then tests have to be done and the safety evaluation carried out.
“We estimate that in the last third of this year (Line 12) will already be in operation (…), we are doing everything, we are working with all the teams so that this year it is in operation,” the official said.
See also: Former officials accused of the collapse in Línea 12 seek the same treatment as Slim
On June 24, at a morning press conference, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador pledged that in a year from that date the gold line would be 100% operational.
“I can already tell the people of Tláhuac and the people of Iztapalapa and Chalco, those who use that transport system, that at the latest in a year the line is working again, with all the security, and it is my word,” he said on that occasion.
During the inspection tour, the secretary of works recalled that all the rehabilitation works are being paid by Grupo Carso, although he said he does not know how much the total rehabilitation of the gold line will amount to.
To date, of the 152 columns that must be reinforced in the 6.7 kilometers of elevated section, a total of 96 have already been intervened -66 with injection of cracks and 30 with carbon fibers-, all in accordance with the recommendations made by the Technical Advisory Committee.
“With this procedure, the resistance of the concrete columns of the elevated section is being increased by 40 percent,” Esteva said.
Given that work is being done on two simultaneous fronts, he estimated that the reinforcement of columns will be completed by the end of next June.
The metal locks that will be placed in the collapsed section, the official reported, would be arriving in about 5 weeks so after this date physical works could already be seen at ground zero.
Read more: ‘I did what I had to do’; Ebrard dissociates himself from poor construction of Line 12
For his part, Javier Rodrigo González, from the Autonomous University of Nuevo León (UANL) and who heads a group of experts who are reviewing the elevated section, said that 80 of 258 clearings have already been inspected and to date a total of 115 cracks have been identified.
The secretary of works explained that it had been agreed that the review of the clearings to look for cracks were random, however, with the findings of the first verifications it was requested that the inspection of 100% of these be made.
The risk of the cracks found is being evaluated by the Technical Advisory Committee. At the moment, Esteva explained, it is known that they are repairable.
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