Reporting on President Danilo Medina’s inaugural Metro ride, the media told Dominicans it was the first time he had ever used the transport system that has been running since 2009. Medina expressed awe at the Metro’s modernity, and described it as not having anything to envy any other international metro. Vice President Margarita Cedeno and Minister of Public Works Gonzalo Castillo, Cardinal Nicolas Lopez Rodriguez, Santo Domingo Mayor Roberto Salcedo, and Metro director Diandino Pena joined the President on the inaugural trip yesterday.
Pena told the press that the President has told him that to continue the second half of the Metro 2 line, which will go all the way to Los Alcarrizos and to San Luis, would be left for an undisclosed future date. It will cost an estimated US$300 million, and the President told him the works would have to wait until government finances improved. The Medina government has inherited the largest fiscal deficit ever accumulated by a Dominican government from his predecessor.