Is the train for the Maya? The Mayan Train and its effects on public transportation in the urban centres of the Yucatan Peninsula

Abstract

The Yucatan peninsula is a space of unequal mobility. The logic of privatisation that drove the growth of the past four decades has hinged on the adoption of core neoliberal tenants that have effectively commodified transit. In urban spaces as unequal as those of the region, privatisation exacerbates exclusion.

Under the banner of “uniting”, “improving the quality of life… and detonating sustainable development” (FONATUR, Tren Maya), the strategic project of Mexico’s federal government in the Yucatan Peninsula, the Mayan Train, is paving the way for capital to flow into the region and utilise the new infrastructure to invest in one of the country’s last untapped spaces of labour and natural resources. The project was promoted as a solution to the problem of regional mobility, one which would provide a low-cost railway network that would erode spatiotemporal barriers and improve communication within the peninsula. Its actions, however, have seen investment flow strictly into the project’s infrastructure, with little or no concern for the impact this will have on the systemic function of public services in those urban centres which the train will connect.

The trend of service privatisation, that began in the 1980s, has seen local governments cut social spending and allow for private ownership of public transportation. These policies, justified as austerity, have favoured an individualized regime of automobility and have provided the infrastructure it demands (Sheller and Urry, 2000, 738-750). The existing marginalization, a product of the structurally restricted motion owed to the lack of available means of public transit, will become exacerbated due to the nature of the projects which private investment prioritises. As things stand, the Mayan Train will create the conditions for regional mobility at the expense of local mobility and the right to the city.