Tram construction misses deadline but city says it is a ‘small delay’; business owners claim they have been ‘lied to again’

The city ombudsman responsible for monitoring the tranvía construction schedule agrees with business owners that the project has missed its deadlines. Those deadlines were set earlier this year when the city announced a new work schedule to meet a July deadline for project completion.

Night-time tram construction. (El Tiempo)

The business owners plan a 10 a.m. press conference at the San Andres Hotel in El Centro to publicly reveal the city’s “schedule default” and announce possible protest plans. The owner’s main complaint regard streets that remain closed due to construction.

The city’s tram project manager, Gerard Fernandez, admits that there are “small delays in the timetable submitted to the ombudsman” but says that lost time will be made up and that the project will be completed on schedule.

According to the schedule agreed to by the city and business leaders, construction should be completed today in a number of areas in the historic district. Among those are sections between Gran Colombia between Tomas Ordonez and Vargas Machuca,on Estevez de Toral and between Colonel Talbot and Octavio Cordero, and on Abraham Sarmiento between Abraham Sarmiento and Leo XIII.

Fernandez says he is changing the 24-hour construction schedule to 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., and adding additional workers. “The 24-hour schedule did not produce the results we expected,” he said. He also says the change was made due to complaints about work noise from residents.