Bogota Metro: get an early start

Siemens last week expressed interest in supplying engineering and other services to a Bogotá Metro, which has not yet been approved.

On the other hand, Colombians seem likely to move forward with a plan, which has been a topic of conversation since the mid 1950s.

Companies will be invited to bid on a project, once a joint federal-municipal commission finishes a feasibility study.

The state will put up two-thirds of the cost, estimated at $3 billion.

Some 70% of the study has been completed on a 27-kilometer long first line, which will run from Transmilenio's Portal de las Américas in the Kennedy district in southwest Bogota, through the center of the city and then to Calle 127 in the northeast.

The subway will be electric and run entirely underground.

Currently, there are more than 3 million car trips daily in Bogota, where traffic for years has been notoriously congested.

Siemens would be interested in bidding on various aspects of the project, including underground 4G wireless service, Daniel Fernandez, the company’s vice president for Latin America, said last week.

The company previously won a bid to install Colombia’s biggest intelligent traffic-control system, and was part of a consortium, which in the 1980s built the Medellin Metro.