President Mr Juan Carlos Varela officially launched construction on Panama City’s second metro line on October 5, when a groundbreaking ceremony was held in the district of Las Mañanitas at the eastern extremity of the line.
Line 2 will be 21km long with 16 stations and will run east from an interchange with Line 1 at San Miguelito to San Antonio, and Hospital del Este, terminating at Nuevo Tocumen. A one-station extension east to Felipillo is also proposed, although this is outside the scope of the initial construction contract. The journey time between San Miguelito and Nuevo Tocumen will be 35 minutes.
Civil works are being carried out by Consorcio Linea 2 a consortium of Odebrecht Infrastructure, Brazil and FCC, Spain, under a $US 1.86bn contract awarded by Panama Metro last year.
A consortium of Alstom, CIM, Sofratesa, Thales, and TSO has been awarded a contract to equip the line. Alstom’s share of the contract is worth around $US 330m and includes a fleet of 21 five-car trains, CBTC, and traction substations.
The line is due to open in 2019 and is initially forecast to carry 16,000 passengers per hour per direction (pphphd) with three-minute-interval services at peak times, although the design capacity will be 40,000 pphpd.