With local residents giving an overwhelming thumbs up to the Chapala government’s proposal to renovate the borders of the highway stretching through the center of Ajijic, work crews are scheduled to get the project rolling early next week.
Despite low turnout for the August 27 public opinion poll, voting heavily favored the plan. Out of 2,000 ballots printed for the survey, 530 were marked “si” to indicate approval, 62 tagged “no” in opposition, and 15 declared null and void for ambiguous or improper marking.
A significant number of foreign residents registered to participate in the process.
Voting was carried out at a polling station set up on the Ajijic plaza and with a mobile ballot box circulated door-to-door among businesses and homes located along the highway. Votes were tallied at the plaza immediately after the process ended at 3 p.m., in full view of city hall officials, citizens and media reporters present at scene.
Local authorities recognize that the project will not resolve traffic congestion through the bottleneck in Ajijic’s busy commercial zone.
Its principal objective is to benefit people over motor vehicles with the construction of a solid line of sidewalks and an adjacent bicycle path along the north side of the roadway.
The project also entails repaving the parking lane on the opposite side, renovating water and sewage lines, installing street lamps and refurbishing shabby storefronts.
Built more than a decade ago, the ciclovia (cycling path) stretches some 40 kilometers from Chapala to Jocotepec, with some missing links where it passes through population centers. The new project will finally fill the treacherous gap between the east and west ends of Ajijic.
The section between calles Javier Mina and Juárez will be paid for from a four-million-peso budget granted through Jalisco’s Regional Development Fund (Fondereg). Chapala Mayor Javier Degollado has committed City Hall to picking up the tab to complete the broken segment from Juarez to the intersection of Alvaro Obregón.
The project will reportedly begin with the replacement of underground infrastructure, followed by work along the south side of the highway, to be carried out block by block. The mayor has indicated that labor requiring the use of heavy machinery will be scheduled during nighttime hours to minimize disturbances to traffic flow.