AMLO asks for no “blackmail” to finish the CDMX-AIFA Interurban Train

Mexico City. “I am not in a hurry to inaugurate” works, responded President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the positions of some residents of the state of Mexico who have expressed their rejection of the passage of the Interurban Train that will connect Mexico City with the Felipe Ángeles International Airport.

He stressed that if the claims are fair, they will be addressed, but he will not give in to blackmail or to people who want to take advantage of the need to finish this means of transport to make money.

“I want us to finish it before our government ends, but we are not going to be blackmailed by anyone. If they don’t want the work to be finished because they want to do something that is not fair, just because if not, they won’t let the train pass, then we leave it as a task for them. I ask the next president (Claudia Sheinbaum). I am not in a hurry to be inaugurating, no one is forced to do the impossible, said President (Benito) Juárez,” the president stressed.

He said that he has information that, even though all the mitigation works have been carried out, there are still some complaints from a group, “and in some cases they are not justified.”

One complaint, he said, is that some people have opposed the construction of a railroad confinement, and want the track to remain only on the road.

“That is not possible, it is very risky. And an overpass was built, only 200 metres away and they do not want to use the overpass which is for vehicles, not pedestrians.

“So, there also has to be an understanding that we cannot make an overpass at every street crossing, because it would be much more expensive and it would be a matter of going around.”

He sent a message to those who oppose the construction of the train, recalling that during the old PRI regime, a politician whose name he did not want to mention because he is dead, said: “A political problem that is solved with money is not a problem.”

The president said: “And that was applied for a long time; that is why the train from Toluca to Mexico City cost so much, because the right of way was paid and paid and abused by those affected or where the train was going to pass and also abused by the officials.” That, he assured, no longer happens in his administration.

He made it clear that the work will not only be for moving from the Buenavista station, in the center of Mexico City, to the AIFA, but will also benefit the residents of the state of Mexico for their mobility.

“They will be in Buenavista in less than an hour, because they are stations, it is like a Metro, so it will help them a lot. It is not just about communication or having more communication from the Felipe Ángeles Airport to the center, the area is full of inhabitants who need this transportation and it will help them, it is a public work.”