Due to the landslide that occurred on January 9 on the Pan-American Highway and left southern Colombia practically cut off, a project that has been structuring for several years has become the definitive solution to this problem that frequently occurs. .
«The current road is only one lane in each direction and crosses the Romeral fault, which is activated frequently, and also, being close to the Colombian massif due to the rain process, it’s a pretty unstable area and it is what has triggered several landslides in recent years,” the president of the ANI, William Camargo, told EL TIEMPO.
(Read also: Closure of the Pan-American highway: the costs of transporting goods by alternate route)
The solution is to build the Timbío-El Estanquillo variant of 70 kilometers, which is part of the 5G Pasto-Popayán project of 268 kilometers in total. Currently, this initiative is in the hands of the National Infrastructure Agency (ANI) in phase two, which is feasibility.
While building the 268 kilometers of Pasto-Popayán currently costs 12 billion pesos, the 70-kilometer Timbío-El Estanquillo section has an estimated investment, in the feasibility phase, of 5.2 trillion pesos (43 percent of the total), therefore, in the future, when the final studies and designs are available, the costs could vary.
The corridor that we have Pasto-Popayán runs, for the most part, on the existing road and on this the roadway will be doubled
It will be a new dual carriageway corridor that It will pass through the western edge of the Pan-American HighwayCompletely avoiding risk areas and with a completely new constructive typology.
«The corridor that we have Pasto-Popayán runs, for the most part, on the existing road and on this the road will be doubled. This will be prioritized based on the sections with the highest volume of traffic, with the exception of the Timbío-El Estanquillo section, in which a variant had been planned from the early stages of the process”, explained the president of the ANI.
However, the complex point of this corridor is, on the one hand, the typology through which it runs makes it an expensive solution, and on the other, the volume of traffic, because in order to achieve a financial closure that makes it possible to do so through a Public Private Association (PPP) first, the cost must be measured, and from there, check if the road can be built with that traffic and with future validity.
Therefore, and in order to speed up the project, from the ANI the decision was made to gradually transfer it to Invias and thus I will achieve that it be delivered in stages. The studies that are available to date and those that will be carried out as part of the feasibility phase will be transferred to Invías in two months. This entity will be in charge of defining the gradualness with which the project would be developed, its stages and the financing to carry it out.
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The other sections of Pasto-Popayán have a different schedule that will be accelerated, although they do not have the same complexities as Timbío-El Estanquillo. At this time, the great unknown remains when the works on this section will begin.
This change will be made in order to manage this project through the public works schemethat allows it to be built in stages according to the availability of government resources, contrary to the conditions of a concession, since due to the amount and characteristics of the project it would take longer to develop it and future validity would be needed for 12 billion pesos.
The president of the ANI stated that in order for the construction stage of Timbío-El Estanquillo to begin, some stages must still be overcome, however, to speed it up, this corridor will be covered by Law 1523 -which will provide advantages in times- because it will be a work that will be developed due to the damage caused by the winter wave in one of the main roads in Colombia.
«This sector of the Pan-American Highway is the best example for these cases. We had a bank loss in a corridor that historically when there is winter their vulnerability increasesand if the Romeral fault is also activated, it sets up a high-risk scenario to connect important areas of the country,” he said.
