Over budget subway system 30% complete

Panama’s  Metro subway  System when operating from 2014, will have the capacity to transport about 525,000 t passengers a day, says the project manager, Robert Roy.

During a press briefing on the work of the transport system, the executive secretary of the Panama Metro said the service would operate 17.5 hours daily, carrying a maximum of 30 000 passengers an  hour in both directions.

The work  that has led to huge traffic snarls is  30 per cent complete, he said, while revealing details of how the system will work.

There will be  19 trains of three cars each to start. Metro Line One, the first in Central America. It will run  over 13.7 kilometers, of track and include 12 stations, five high, six underground or partially buried.

The project, which Roy said had cost overruns, will involve an investment of $8,8 billion dollars.

The Panamanian government believes that the Metro will be ready for delivery in February 2014, after a 38 month construction period.. The work parallels the new  Metrobus as an alternative to serious traffic problems in a city which introduces  around 4 000 new vehicles a month.

Roy said that after it begins operations in 2014, Metro will have the challenge of  a new crossing for  the Panama Canal, with the options of a tunnel or a bridge.