President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum has given her seal of approval to the Maya Train railroad after taking two train trips in recent days with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Sheinbaum, who will take office Oct. 1, and López Obrador traveled from the Edzná Station in Campeche to the Teya Station near Mérida, Yucatán, on Friday.
They boarded the Maya Train again on Saturday to travel from Teya to the Cancún Airport Station in Quintana Roo. On Sunday, Sheinbaum took to social media to declare that the as-yet-incomplete railroad is “a historic feat.” “It’s not just the more than 1,500 kilometers [of tracks] built in five years and the beauty of the trip.
It’s the recovery of the archaeological sites, the decree of hundreds of thousands of hectares of Natural Protected Areas, the investment in the well-being of dozens of communities,” she wrote on X . “..
. It’s also recognizing ourselves in the grandeur of the Maya culture of then and now. Congratulations to all the companies, engineers, workers and military engineers.
What has been achieved is something amazing,” added Sheinbaum. Environmental groups and others have criticized the project, which cut down large swathes of forest to build the tracks. In addition, steel and cement pilings pierced through the roofs of limestone caves along a section of the railroad in Quintana Roo.
Experts said the perforations affected the quality of subterranean water and destroyed “archaeological and geologi.
