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Starting next Friday, Colombians will be able to enjoy 8.6 kilometers of dual carriageway in the La Línea Tunnel. After more than 118 years of thinking, designing and executing the work, the National Government will put into operation what is perhaps the largest infrastructure milestone in the country.
The Tunnel, which is located between Cajamarca and Calarcá, will connect the southwest and the Coffee Axis with the center of the country. This will be one way only and is expected to save time and money for those who use it. That was one of the conclusions of Juan Esteban Gil, director of Invias, who, in Inside LR, gave the details of the project, its economic benefits and the milestones that were raffled to execute more than $ 1 billion for the work.
In a week the La Línea Tunnel will be inaugurated, what does the Government deliver?
The Central Cordillera crossing project consists of the dual carriageway connection from Cajamarca to Calarcá, which is part of the Buga-Buenaventura commercial corridor, and is part of Alto de La Línea, where specifically it is the bottleneck of the Bogotá corridor. – Buenaventura. There, in the sector between Cajamarca and Calarcá, we have the challenge of building 30 kilometers of dual carriageway. That solves the development of 25 tunnels, 31 viaducts, three interchanges, 30 km of dual carriageway. And among those 25 tunnels, is the Line Tunnel.
The total solution is that dual carriageway, which we have planned to deliver in two moments. The first moment, on September 4, in which we will deliver the most important work that has been developed in the transportation infrastructure in Colombia. And it is the La Línea Tunnel, which generates more benefits for the transport economy. We will also install the rescue tunnel, which is a parallel tunnel, and we will also deliver three short tunnels, and we will deliver 13.4 kilometers of a pair of dual carriageways. The remainder is scheduled to take place in April. From the exit of the tunnel on the Quindío side, and on the other side of the tunnel to Cajamarca, there are another almost 10 kilometers that we have planned in April 2021.
How much was the investment made by this Government and what are the benefits?
In the end it had a total cost of $ 1 billion, and that of the entire corridor was $ 2.9 billion. The most important benefits that occur are associated with the bidirectionality generated on the road.
Between Cajamarca and Calarcá, under normal conditions, we take two to two and a half hours, but these are an uncertainty, and that is why we have 850 hours of closure of this highway per year. That will disappear because with the La Línea road we will have two lanes in one direction passing through the Tunnel, from Armenia to Bogotá, and we will have two lanes that go up to Alto de La Línea from Bogotá to the southwest of the country, but with two lanes. That increases the speed of operation from 18 to 60 kilometers per hour, and eliminates all the closures. Between Cajamarca and Calarcá it will travel between 30 or 40 minutes, but since we have two moments in the delivery of the project, in the first moment we will save 50 minutes, and in the whole between 90 and 120 minutes.
We are going to save lives, the road presents 198 accidents due to overtaking in lanes will disappear. And an important piece of information for the economy is the costs of travel savings. The road has 6,500 vehicles a year. When one takes that to annual costs, operating the road (maintenance, lubricants, tires, policies, accidents) is done with $ 505,000 million and when this project comes into operation, it will be $ 251,000 million. A savings of almost $ 250,000 million. Thus, a light vehicle to pass between the road will save between $ 70,000 and $ 80,000. And a tractor, up to $ 170,000.
Why is it the most important engineering work in the history of the country?
It is the most important work that has been developed, but at the same time the most complex. We are 2,500 meters above sea level and it is a sensitive environment with many potentialities. A key piece of information is that the Cordillera Central is a very complex geological system. Let’s remember that we had been talking about the project for a long time, since 1902. The construction of a railway tunnel began, but that was aborted. At the beginning of the 2000s, commissions came that said that it was impossible to cross the Cordillera, but what the government did in 2004 was to rethink the project in phases, and that is where it was decided to start building the pilot and study tunnel. And see if it was viable or not. And that was built between 2005 and 2008. That’s where the construction of the main tunnel was born. In August 2009, the works began until September 2020. It took 11 years to build the most complex tunnel that has been developed in the history of Colombia. 24 contracts were executed, all of them completed successfully, except for one, and that contractor stopped the works in 2016, with 56% progress, and only until 2018 was $ 620,000 million injected to guarantee the reactivation of the works.
What is delivered in April and how much will the entire work cost?
The total investment of the project in all its phases costs $ 2.9 billion. What we still need is from the Americas sector to Calarcá is a dual carriageway, and five short tunnels. That is already in full swing, and we hope to launch them in April. We have a critical path, which is a 640-meter bridge, which we are progressing in its construction. And then it is necessary to be able to finish it. And on the other side of the mountain we have 6 kilometers left.
Do you already have an estimate of how much productive activity in the west of the country and exports will increase?
We are working on this data with the Ministry of Commerce. However, the data associated with the savings of the national economy will generate competitiveness in foreign trade.
How many people participated in the construction of the Tunnel?
Today we can tell the country that there were 6,500 heroes who developed this type of infrastructure.
How many tolls will be located and how will the collection be?
Normally the toll arrives immediately, this is a project thinking about the profitability of the transport economy. We are going to place a toll, but charged in two ways. And it is very important to know that it will be the same toll, but for four lanes in each direction. In the first instance, that cost will not be transferred to the user because we have this moment of a pandemic, and the increase will begin to be socialized from October to be collected in the coming year. But in 2021 this will not be the most expensive toll.
How are the projects in charge of Invias and the reactivation of its works going?
We are in charge of a very important project that is the dual carriageway between Cartagena and Barranquilla; we are making progress in construction in the Manizales bypass; We are building a project that is between Tumaco and Puerto de Esmeraldas. We are making progress in sustaining the Ruta del Sol II highway, where we have advanced 74 kilometers of dual carriageway. We advance on rural roads. We are committed to the most remote regions of the country.
How are tertiary roads progressing?
Rurality has to connect with these great roads. We have to guarantee that our field connects with the roads and the great highways. We began serving 938 municipalities in the country, we have already signed 250 agreements, and now in September we begin works. We are making progress in bidding for works and auditing. We will generate 70,000 jobs to guarantee these tertiary roads. In them we have invested, if we add all the sources, $ 3 billion. And we are going to invest $ 1.5 trillion only from the Nation’s Budget next year.
