By The Star Staff
The Department of Transportation and Public Works (DTOP) is silent on the status of the multimillion-dollar project to install new ticket vending machines in Urban Train stations, at a cost of $25 million.
Last week, Ivonne Lozada Rosas, candidate for the Senate for the district of San Juan on the Popular Democratic Party (PDP) ballot, questioned what has happened to it.
“It was last October when the management of the Department of Transportation and Public Works (DTOP) announced the installation of these new machines at the Martínez Nadal station of the Urban Train, in a plan that is supposed to be ready this year, where boats and buses are integrated as part of the integrated transportation system. Precisely when the Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián were celebrated last week, the use of this means of transport increased dramatically, as well as in sporting and artistic events in San Juan,” said the also expert in legislative affairs.
Although last October the executive director of the Integrated Transport Authority (ATI), Josué Menéndez Agosto, explained that these two machines in Martínez Nadal, in Guaynabo, were going to be used for an internal testing phase prior to their full implementation in all stations, at the moment they are isolated by fences, according to a photo presented by Lozada to the media.
“Naturally, the processes of modernization of systems take their own time, but it is also important that citizens are properly informed. For many years, criticism of the ATI system has been many, in part because it is obsolete. The construction of the Urban Train began in the 1990s and still costs us $2.2 billion, as it was financed mostly with debt issuance that still needs to be paid. Hence the interest of this servant in overseeing what is the property of all of us, the taxpayers,” Lozada Rosas said.