[ad_1]
The 137-kilometer highway between Cundinamarca and Casanare should be completed this year. In fact, the concession is in the process of handing over to the State the first of four functional units.
In the coming weeks, 49.1 repaved kilometers of the Transversal del Sisga, a project of the fourth generation of road concessions (4G), will officially enter into operation that aims to improve the walkability of the alternate highway to the Llano from the Sisga sector. north of Bogotá, up to Sabanalarga (Casanare), through the Tenza Valley.
The Transversal del Sisga SAS concession confirmed to this medium that it is in the process of signing the termination certificate for the first functional unit, which goes from the Sisga sector to the municipality of Guateque (Boyacá), because the work has already been completed. The builder notified the National Infrastructure Agency (ANI) and is waiting for the audit to verify the work, for which it has a period of sixty days that can be extended if observations are made, so that the ANI receives satisfaction and disburse you the first $ 84 billion of the project cost.
In addition, the other three functional units have an important advance: the second, from Guateque to Macanal (Boyacá), with 22 kilometers, is at 96%; the third, from Macanal to Santa María (Boyacá), of 18 kilometers, in 94%, and the last, from Santa María to Aguaclara (urban center in Casanare), with 48 kilometers, in 62%, which adds up to a total advance 88%. The concession manager, Ernesto Carvajal, explained that in units 2 and 3 the lighting connections need to be completed and the tunnel traffic control systems installed; in unit 4 unstable sites are still being cared for and work is being done on complementary works, such as the weighing station and the toll booth in San Luis de Gaceno, Piedmont.
According to its schedule, the first semester of 2021 should be paved the 137 kilometers that the road has; in fact, they only have four kilometers to go (97% progress), corresponding to unstable sites of recent appearance and urban crossings in the municipalities of Santa María and San Luis de Gaceno, which the ANI is still discussing with the communities. The second semester of this year would be the total delivery to the State of the new highway, once the intervention of critical points is completed, the equipment of the fourteen tunnels is installed and an operations center, two scales, two service areas and a toll are built. in the San Luis de Gaceno municipality, whose base rate starts at $ 13,900, although a discount will be applied to the inhabitants of the area, which has not yet entered service.
The improvement of this road, whose cost is estimated at more than $ 966,800 million, will benefit some 100,000 users, including inhabitants of the municipalities, people dedicated to livestock or poultry farming and visitors to the Sisga dam, among others. The concession followed the original route of the highway, defined in the 1930s, which was not completely paved, finished the asphalt layer, improved it and strengthened it, but it is still a simple two-way road.
“The user already perceives the benefits, since the travel times for a type 1 vehicle, that is, a car or truck, have been reduced by two and a half hours, not counting the increase in the supply of goods and services on the road, which are palpable in the region. The benefits of the project are already perceived, despite the fact that we lack some details to deliver the work ”, Carvajal highlighted.
Critical points have been a sensitive issue in this concession, whose contract was signed in July 2015, to begin work a month later. Similar to what happens on the Bogotá-Villavicencio road, the Central mountain range is responsible for dozens of unforeseen instabilities. According to the contract, 58 of these points had to be intervened, but in five years of work the concession found almost three times more: now there are 168 and they continue to appear.
La Transversal del Sisga has not been exempt from the usual problems of 4G. The first functional unit was funded with the partners’ own resources and took longer than expected, due to difficulties in obtaining financing after the Odebrecht corruption scandal. The project reached its financial closure in May 2018, with the participation of the Financiera de Desarrollo Nacional (FDN), the Ashmore EM Fund, the Blackrock Fund and the Official Credit Institute of Spain. But it was not the only delay, the time agreed for the property management was extended almost a year, because it was necessary to acquire more lots to rehabilitate the unstable points of the road and rebuild the pavement. All this led to the delivery period running two years, from 2019 to 2021.
The difference on account of the additional property management had to be reconciled in an arbitration court, which was established in September 2018 and took less than a year, where it was agreed to give the concession more time for construction (up to 270 additional days ). However, a new court was installed last year for the additional cost of these hotspots, which is still ongoing. “Other sites have appeared that the dealer is serving and reserves the right to claim them,” said engineer Carvajal.
In 2019 they had a new contingency, because, due to the collapse at kilometer 58 of the Bogotá-Villavicencio road, a large part of the traffic was diverted by the Transversal del Sisga, with which the number of vehicles tripled, impacting their plan of plays. The delays were recognized by the ANI, which accepted their liability defense and granted them an additional 60 days. “Our project was one of the few that did not stop, even in the midst of the pandemic we had about six work fronts associated with unstable sites plus some vehicular bridges that we could not completely stop for safety. Almost all the staff remained linked and to date more than 7,200 people have been linked to this project, “said the manager.
In addition, the pandemic caused them another delay, for which the ANI granted them 98 more days to complete works. The Transversal del Sisga was one of the few projects that continued despite the cessation of activities decreed by the Government during the quarantine, because to date they had about six work fronts associated with unstable sites plus some vehicular bridges in process that could not be stop in its entirety for safety; but it is already a situation overcome, even the traffic through the corridor has normalized. In January, they registered an average of 2,200 vehicles per day, mainly light ones, such as cars, trucks, vans and minibuses, since the road is restricted to vehicles of more than thirty tons), 19% more than the usual figure (1,850 vehicles per day).
