According to city hall, the delivery of the new calandras means that 20 horses will be withdrawn from service and no longer will be forced to pull the heavy wooden contraptions around the city center for hours on end. Merilyn Gómez Pozos, director of the animal welfare group Protección Animal Guadalajara, said the horses will be donated to the Fundación Tierra Nueva por los Animales, which will find them suitable homes.
The new delivery raises the number of electric carriages operating in the downtown Guadalajara area to 16. Another 39 horse-driven carriages remain active, which the new city administration hopes to replace over the coming months. A handful of operators, however, are still digging in their heels and have refused to sign agreements with city hall to switch over to the horseless models.
Mayor Enrique Ibarra Pedroza said the drivers of the ten battery-powered carriages have received the appropriate training and are ready to offer rides to the general public.
Six electric calandrias have been available for hire since June but drivers admit that tourists still prefer to rent the horse-drawn variety.
Under pressure from animal welfare groups, the Movimiento Ciudadano (MC)-dominant Guadalajara council voted in 2017 to abolish the long-standing tradition of horse-drawn carriage rides in the city center. The MC policy has not only met with resistance from some operators but also political foes. The policy received another setback recently when the state government — headed by Governor Aristoteles Sandoval of the rival Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) — declared that the traditional calandrias would be added to their list of “tangible cultural heritage sites and traditions” that are considered worthy of preservation for the future.
The incoming Guadalajara municipal administration hopes to deliver the remaining 39 electric carriages soon after the new cabildo (city council) is sworn in on October 1. The good news for supporters of the program is that the MC will still hold majority in the council chamber and is not expected to alter course.