PERU: The first section of Lima metro Line 2 has been opened by President Dina Boluarte and Minister of Transport & Communications Raúl Pérez Reyes.
Phase 1a, which opened on December 21, runs 5 km entirely underground from Evitamiento to Mercado Santa Anita with five stations. Boluarte said that this would reduce the journey time by public transport from 30 min to 7 min.
Travel is free until April, to encourage people to bring their family and friends to try the new service. In the first week the line carried 92 565 passengers.
Construction
The line was built by Metro de Lima Línea 2 under a design, finance, build, operate and maintain concession awarded in 2014.
The consortium includes Iridium, Dragados, FCC, Webuild, Cosapi, Hitachi Rail STS and Hitachi Rail Italy. Metro de Madrid has provided support for the project.
The infrastructure is designed to withstand a Magnitude 9 earthquake.
Hitachi is supplying 42 six-car trains, with the initial service requiring five. The aluminium bodied trainsets are 107 m long with 166 seats and space for 1 105 standing passengers. They are initially operating with a driver onboard, pending a switch over to full automation. There is provision to lengthen the trains to seven cars.
The concessionaire has awarded Comsa subsidiary GMF a contract for maintenance of the rolling stock, maintenance vehicles and facilities.
Extensions
Planned extensions east to Municipalidad de Ate and west to Puerto del Callao would take Line 2 to 27 km and 27 stations, and provide an interchange with the surface-running Line 1 at Gamarra.
The end-to-end journey time would be 45 min, compared to 2½ h by existing public transport.
