The news of the creation of Metro Line 12 was assimilated in a sector of the metropolitan area as a promise that finally met its needs for change, progress and improvement in the quality of life. But in less than a decade, irregularities, opacity and corruption ended up transforming the false promise into a bitter tragedy that cost 24 people their lives and directly affected hundreds of thousands.
A three-hour trip from Tlahuac's whereabouts to Mixcoac station is enough to explain why Metro Line 12 was a real transformation for the working class in the southeast of the capital.
STC Metro support line
5:50 in the morning. Only five officials from the Ministry of Mobility (Semovi) are responsible for grouping in an orderly manner all people arriving from remote areas in Milpa Alta, Xochimilco and the State of Mexico, in one of the 490 RTP buses that temporarily replace the subway cars on Cetram Tláhuac.
The five-peso journey starts at kilometer one of Avenida Tláhuac. Outside, the landscape is made up of the humble cement houses and the hundreds of small businesses that have not yet opened their curtains: creameries, barbershops, tortilla shops, canvas prints, copies, automotive services. The view is completed by the electoral propaganda — with the smiles and promising phrases of the candidates for mayor — and the graffiti written in black paint on several of the columns of the elevated section: “It could have been you”, “May 3 is not forgotten”, “PAN-PRI-MORENA-THE SAME SHIT”.
On the other side of the window, 27 passengers sit quietly. The bride writes to one on whatsapp: “Blessed arrival at work love”. Another carries a basket of churros that prevents him from sitting all the way. Most take advantage of the last few minutes of darkness to extend their sleep time a little. In half an hour, according to the woman in the next seat, doing that will be more complicated because these same trucks will become a real chaos.
“Now you come quietly, because soon after, at 6:30, you find them full,” says María Luisa, who since the subway incident about an hour and a half ago from Tláhuac to Lomas Estrella station to attend to her food business. “I used to take 15 minutes by metro,” he regrets.
At Olivos Station, the dream is the first to get off the bus. All passengers look at the window to observe the collapsed structure in the shape of a “V”. Everyone watches, but no one says anything. On the other side still lies under the rubble the Ford Mondeo in which José Juan Galindo (34) and his wife Amelia Soto were traveling. She survived — as evidenced by a video — but he died crushed by the whale that was holding the subway pass.
“Justice for John. They let him die for 5 hours screaming and the rescuers ignored him. He was alive,” reads a phosphorescent banner with his printed photo and a rose taped.
At 6:50 the increase in traffic is noticeable. In a matter of hours this will be a sea of people, street stalls and road chaos due to the removal of debris in ground zero of the collapse. Having a conversation will become a complicated task with the constant screeching of the motor and the screams of public transport collectors. Two lanes, which in some sections become one, are not enough for everything.
Mobility Secretary Andrés Lajous promised “operational improvements” to speed up waiting times for the current temporary service, but for the inhabitants of Tlahuac the damage has already been done and the reality is that no interim solution seems to be enough to fix the real underlying problem.
Lizeth, employed in a private company, told Infobae Mexico that twice as long ago from her home in Zapotitlan to her work on Avenida División del Norte. Before, when the metro worked, he says that he was going to the Central Axis station between 30 and 45 minutes. Now he says it takes about an hour and a half.
Like her, thousands of people working at the upper-middle or professional level—at one of the corporate levels of the city's economic bastion—hope that in the short term the authorities will enable the underground stretch from Atlalico to Mixcoac. Although Lizeth admits that in her case it would not suit her so much because she would only travel three stations. “If they open it up to Peripheral it would save me an hour [...] I estimate that in less than a year the line will be completely restored. It is not convenient for them to have it closed,” says Esperanzada.
The mayors and towns that make up the city's peripheries are an essential factor in the ZMVM, the largest in the country with a 17% contribution to total GDP, according to the study A Look at the Economy of Mexico City by Lorena Galindo and Alejandro Burgos.
In the mid-twentieth century, Tláhuac ceased to be a purely rural territory and began to undergo a process of urbanization that became more visible after the 1980s. At the beginning of the decade, the population in Tláhuac reached 153,008 inhabitants (1.7% of the total population), but ten years later it exceeded 261,007 (2.5%). Today, its population reaches 392,313 inhabitants (more than 3%), according to official figures from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).
Since 2000, the mayors of Mexico City have presented negative migration balances with the exception of the south. The area of Tláhuac — which borders Iztapalapa to the north, Milpa Alta to the south and Xochimilco to the west — comprises 95.58 km², equivalent to 6.5% of the capital's total area.
For this reason, contrary to those who criticized its service, the construction of Metro Line 12 meant a fast, cheap and safe mode of transport (in the face of crime) for the working class, which, in the absence of job opportunities, moves every day to their centers of study and work in more developed areas of the metropolis.
“They have the trucks stopped over the University for peak hours. Everyone who comes from Mixcoac already comes with people. It's not fair that we have to stop if there are so many empty trucks,” a user at Zapata station, who had not yet arrived at her workplace at eight in the morning, told Infobae Mexico, even though she arrived at Tezonco station to take the bus from 6:30.
The five-peso quota for the three provisional routes (Mixcoac, Taxqueña, Lomas Estrella-CU) is perceived by some users as an offense after what happened, even more so if you take into account that transfers are not respected. With the new RTP truck mode, each trip, regardless of whether it is part of the new route, involves a separate payment.
When you arrive at Mixcoac station around 8:30, the bus driver indicates the end of the tour. All passengers who didn't get off at Zapata leave the truck. This publishing company was able to verify that a non-stop journey from Tláhuac to Mixcoac, leaving early in the morning, takes about three hours. Not to mention that many users still take a truck or metro line 7 to get to their jobs in the center and north of the city.
“Justice nothing more”
Patricia Salinas Manzo, a family member of one of the survivors of the collapse of Line 12, arrived Wednesday afternoon at Olivos Station to make a single request.
“Why are you here, what are you asking for?
“Justice, justice nothing more. Not just for me, but for all the families who are going through this,” said the wife of Sergio René Alvarado Hernández, one of the wounded who still has predictions in store, like teenager Tania Lezama.
What does your husband have?
“He had a fracture of seven ribs, a stoppage in the middle of surgery and on Friday he goes into spinal surgery.”
On the night of the collapse, Patricia was waiting for her husband at the Tlahuac terminal. From there the two planned to go home together in Valle de Chalco. They both work in the same company, but that night she decided to go ahead.
The last thing she knew was that her husband was three seasons behind her. When he passed through Olivos he was barely in Culhuacán. The last message he sent to her was to the room by ten o'clock. A thumb raised to indicate that everything was okay. Then he didn't know any more. “If anyone knows about him, please give us reports,” he asked Footer moments after the collapse.
The following hours were a real way of the cross for Patricia and her 14-year-old daughter, who all night searched for Sergio in several hospitals (General de Tlahuac and Belisario Domínguez) without success. While holding a picture of her father, the youngest asked all the people who crossed her path if they had seen him.
Finally, hours later they learned that he had survived and that he had been admitted to the General Hospital of Xoco. However, the news they gave Patricia was that her husband was one of the most delicate survivors.
“All this changed our lives for my daughter and me,” Patricia said Wednesday in the rain, before offering her support and solidarity to the rest of the victims.