Engineer Jhael Isa Tavarez, in charge of the Santiago Monorail transportation system project, reported the arrival on 19 January 2024 of the first four cars for the mass transit system in the country’s second largest city. Isa Tavarez says the first tests of the system will be held in April 2024.
The engineer said the tests would extend into 2025 when the service is scheduled to open to the general public.
The first section to open would be from Station 01 in Santiago Oeste (Cienfuegos), to the Central Station on Las Carreras Avenue. From there, it would join the Santiago Cable Car transportation system, whose start of operations is scheduled for March 2024.
Isa Tavarez explained that the builders will soon start adjusting the electromechanical components.
Four massive trucks were used to carry the monorail train cars from Punta Caucedo in Santo Domingo to Santiago. They traveled the length of the Duarte highway and then took the beltway around Santiago before arriving at their destination: western Santiago in the barrio of Cienfuegos.
The monorail train cars came from Kingston, Canada where they were assembled.
According to a spokesman for the project, the train cars will be computer-controlled, and they will operate without a conductor, relying on control panels at the different stations.
The RD$40 billion investment is all part of the Trust for the Development of the Mass Transit System of the Dominican Republic (Fitram).
Plans are for the monorail and the cable car mass transit systems to be fully operational by 2025.
In the case of the monorail trains, each one of the 15 total units (each unit will have four cars) can carry 580 passengers to any of the 14 stations along the way, providing riders with service every 90 seconds, starting in Cienfuegos, the center of the municipality of West Santiago, and ending in the Villa Olimpica on Estrella Sadhala Avenue.
Estimates call for moving 20,000 passengers per hour for the monorail and 4,500 passengers per hour for the cable cars.
The cable cars, coming from the areas south of the city, will provide mass transit service to the areas of Valle Verde and the campus of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo branch in La Barranquita, and feed into the monorail system in the lower part of Santiago de los Caballeros, near the Palace of Justice on Imbert Avenue.
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N Digital
22 January 2024