Funding for two major infrastructure projects touted by Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro do not feature in the federal budget for 2020, announced this week by Finance Minister Arturo Herrera.
Guadalajara’s fourth Tren Ligero (subway) line and the Peribus (BLT bus line) on the metro area’s busy beltway (periferico) were both omitted from President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s budget, which increases federal spending next year from 5.8 to 6.1 trillion pesos.
The budget also excludes Alfaro’s project to clean up the Santiago River, one of the most polluted in the nation.
However, Jalisco Finance Secretary Juan Partida Morales said he expects funds from the Communication and Transportation Ministry (SCT) to be “reassigned” to the Tren Ligero Line Four, while the National Infrastructure Fund (FONADIN) has guaranteed funding for both the Peribus and Puerto Vallarta libramiento (bypass) projects.
Although Lopez Obrador has vowed that Line Three of Guadalajara’s Tren Ligero will be opened by the end of this year, the 2020 budget allocates a small amount of funds for spillover work on the project. And just over 247 million pesos earmarked for the stalled Zapotillo Dam project in northeastern Jalisco will be spent on building an aqueduct from the dam site to the city of Leon, compensation payments to local residents and for “technical and administrative” purposes. Work on the dam itself will not restart until all sides in the controversial project have been heard and the outstanding legal issues resolved, the president has promised.