SUPERSYSTEM

Latin America’s oldest capital city will inaugurate its first metro line toward the end of 2022, making journeys around the city considerably shorter.

MANY LARGE CITIES AND CAPITALS across the world are immediately identifiable by their metro system. The London Underground, for example, with its red and blue station signs has become one of the most iconic visual features of London. The New York City Subway, too, is part of the great city’s identity and way of life, just as is Tokyo’s admittedly overcrowded but lively metro system.

With the capitals and megacities of many developing countries expanding remarkably over the past two decades, the need for an efficient and affordable mass transit system has arisen. The experience of those megacities has shown that metro systems are the best bet for a growing city with difficult traffic jams.

Istanbul, for instance, was suffering from notorious traffic jams in the 1980s, which made navigation in the city almost impossible at certain hours of the day. With the inauguration of the Istanbul Metro in 1989-1990, however, things took a turn for the better. Likewise, Mexico City’s Metro (1969), Chile’s Metro de Santiago (1975), and Metro de Panamá (2014) have all been undeniable successes in Latin America, with daily riderships of up to 60% of their respective city’s population.

The capital of Ecuador, San Francisco de Quito, often simply referred to as Quito, is an expanding city with a population of 2,800,000—over 3 million including the Greater Quito metropolitan area. And it has not escaped the notice of Ecuador’s urban planners that the oldest capital city of Latin America is in need of a metro system.

Quito’s unique geography makes commuting more complicated. Limited by Andean foothills to the west and the east, Quito is nearly 45km long and only 5km wide. As the city continues to grow vertically, traveling between the two extremes will take still more time. Commuting from somewhere in the northern parishes of the stripe-shaped city to the southern neighborhoods (or vice versa) can easily take an hour and a half. A proper metro system could reduce that time to just 30 minutes.

Plans for the main north-south line of Metro de Quito (MDQ) have been on the drawing board for at least a decade, and several international organizations have stepped up to make the USD2-billion plan a reality. Construction operations began in 2016 by the Spanish company, Acciona, with the rolling stock and electronic control system commissioned around the same time. Although the initial aim was to inaugurate Metro de Quito’s Line 1 in 2020, issues such as the pandemic led to a delay.

The 15 stations of Line 1, strategically located across some 25km, however, are currently perfectly serviceable, the rolling stock, including 16 trains, have been delivered and ready, and the metro system is set to come online toward the end of 2022.

Line 1 of MDQ begins at El Labrador in the northern parish of La Concepción and continues southward to Quitumbe, making a stop along 13 other stations en route. Up to five additional stations are pencilled in the design of Line 1 that can be constructed in the future based upcoming urban planning necessities and decisions.

Two of the stations, La Magdalena and El Recreo, which are both located in the heart of the city and close to its business districts, have the potential to turn into intersections between Line 1 and new lines that may intersect the main line in the future. However, as Quito is a strip-shaped city, stretching from north to south, east-west lines are currently not a priority in the design of the city’s metro system.

Line 1 must work in an integrated manner with the city’s bus system, despite some inevitable competition between the two mass transportation systems for ridership. Figuring out an optimal, smart, and integrated schedule between MDQ’s future operator and the city’s local public bus transportation authority can help both mass transit systems maintain their ridership statistics, while reducing commuting times between strategic points across Quito. The public public bus system may need to upgrade its routes with the inauguration of MDQ, and though it may be slightly inconvenient, it will be crucial for the capital city’s transportation and economy.

There is one last remaining conundrum. The municipality has not yet made a decision with regard to the operator of MDQ’s Line 1, with its 15 stations and 16 trains. Initially, the plan was to put the municipality itself in charge of the job, but many believe a public-private partnership with a foreign company is a better idea. It is estimated that a public-private partnership can save up to USD14 million over the next decade, which is no small sum in Quito.

No company in Ecuador has thus far run a metro system, and a foreign partner with some experience in the sector can eliminate the need for wasteful trial-and-error experiments in managing the system. At last report, MDQ’s board had acknowledged the need for international technical assistance, while reassuring the public that regardless of any management models that may be chosen, the metro will start operations before the end of 2022.