Metro de Medellín
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The Metro de Medellín is an urban train that crosses the Metropolitan Area of Medellín from North to South and from Centre to West. As one of the first experiences of modern massive transportation in Colombia, the Metro of Medellín belongs to the urban planning of the Antioquia. The Medellín City and its urban complex (ten cities in the Aburrá Valley), is a city with a quick industrial development that has started since the 1930’s. Experiences as the streetcar (tranvía) at the beginning of the 20th Century can be considered as pioneers of what would be in the beginning of the 21rst Century the Metro of Medellín. The company known in Spanish as Empresa de Transporte Masivo del Valle de Aburrá - Metro de Medellín Ltda. Was created on May 31, 1979. The debt of the Metro de Medellín is about US$1,600,000,000 that will be paid during the next 50 or 60 years [1].
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[edit] History
The railway history in Colombia and Antioquia has not been indifferent to the industrialization process that started at the end of the 19th Century and that only has been restrained by the social and political conflicts of this South American nation.
The Antioquia Department and the Paisa Region in general, owe their progress to the construction of railways that had put them in direct contact with the rest of the country (especially with the Capital, Cali and the Colombian Caribbean Littoral.
Although the famous Ferrocarriles de Antioquia (The Antioquia’s Railways) came to a pitiful decline and it is only remembered by the so called towns of the train, the urban train got the attention of the region. In the same way the Antioquia’s Railways did a Century ago, the Metro of Medellín became an important social, cultural and developer axle of one of the most important cities of Colombia and South America.
The speedy urban growing of the city, especially since the 1960’s, has filled the entire Aburrá Valley and made towns touched their borders: Bello, Copacabana, Girardota, Barbosa, Envigado, Itagüí, San Antonio de Prado, La Estrella, Sabaneta and Caldas, among others. It put the city in the front of the national economic and compelled local leaders to think not more in a provincial town but in a complex urban system that can be compared with any other industrialized city in the world.
In the same sense, Medellín and its Metropolitan Area had to face the appearance of the mafia during the 1970’s producing serious problems of urban violence as a result of that speedy urban growing and the slow answer to the needs of the popular communities. The city grew due to big migration waves coming from the Colombian countryside looking refuge in the city because the internal political conflict. That was the main background that would explain how a young city would face urban violence with the same intensity of big polis as New York, México or Rio de Janeiro and why the city had to create urban projects in answer to its conflicts and growing.
The Metro of Medellín was created not only as a massive urban transport for the worker classes of the city, but also as an important cultural axle that would help to the inclusion of marginalized sectors. The Metro would change the concept of public space in a city built for business and factories, but that did not have space for things like tourism as a systematic issue.
As a company, the Metro of Medellín was created for the administration and operation of the Metro system. It was founded with the association of the Medellín Municipality and the Antioquia Government. In 1979 it was started the research on the economical and technical possibilities. Such researches were made by Mott, Hay & Anderson Ltda firm.
In 1980 the Project was presented to the National Government and it was approved by the National Counsel of Economical and Social Policies in 1982. It was also authorized to the company the external contract of 100% of the required resources for the work. In 1984 the company contracted German and Spaniard firms.
On November 30, 1995, 11:00 (local time), began the first journey between Niquía and Poblado Stations. The net was concluded by 1996.
Soon the population welcomed the new service and the social and cultural impact was important. The Metro of Medellín became soon a symbol of the city (it was the first Metro in Colombia) and an encouragement to tourism and new spaces for a city of business. There were visitors first from other regions and cities of Colombia and after from abroad. Other important issue was the knowledge of other realities of the city that before were hidden as the contrast among the “Poor city” and the “Rich city”, when the Metro crosses abysmal social walls between districts as "Lovaina" and "Poblado".
The concept of time has been altered also in the city: Before a worker from Bello spent two hours by bus going to Envigado. With the Metro, the distance among those two cities became just 30 minutes.
In 2004 saw the inauguration of a new line known as "Cable Metro" (Line K). The line starts in the Acevedo Station and goes to the up hill district of Santo Domingo Savio. It is meant an important fact: the Metro was integrating those families that had come to the city since the 1960's and were most of the time emigrated and unknown before that that was hold as the "real city".
Besides it, the Metro of Medellín has created public and cultural spaces along its lines: squares, restaurants, parks, recreational places, cultural areas, business sites, giving a new vision to the second largest Colombian city.
[edit] Lines
In 1995 the Metro of Medellín had 25 stations: 19 in the Line A and 6 in the Line B (one of transference). In 2004 was inaugurated the Line K with 4 stations (one of transference). It is an aerial cable called Metrocable. Line J will be inaugurated in November 2007 with 4 stations (one of transference).
The total of stations is 28 in 2004 which will be increased to 31 in 2007.
[edit] Stations
The official list of the Stations of the Metro of Medellín. In black the Stations of transition to other lines.
| Line A North to South |
Line B East to West |
Line K (Metrocable) North to Northeast |
Line J (Metrocable) [starting in November 2007] West to Southwest |
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[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ ACUERDO PARA PAGAR DEUDA DEL METRO DE MEDELLÍN (es). Presidencia de la República de Colombia (2004-03-25). Retrieved on 2007-03-13.
