The Tren Cancun — A tourist’s dream proposal

-Cancun Bus

I visited Cancun recently. You can land in the airport and that’s about it. There are busses, but the bus system isn’t good. Whether they intend to or not, they push travelers into cars through Uber, taxis, or rented.

This isn’t ideal. As tourism grows around the world, these two-lane roads will grow more congested with cars. Touristy places, with an emphasis on relaxation and celebrating, can lead to drunk driving and traffic violence.

As shown in the photo above, there is a bus system. As shown in the photo above, there is no bus shelter, departure times, or any public transit support you’d expect. Beyond that, the bus only goes through the Hotel Zone and not to Cancun’s downtown nor the airport. Additionally, bus payments are handled in cash only. You can’t get a bus pass even if you’re staying at a hotel.

I think there’s an opportunity to do something really neat here. So the following essay documents my proposal for a light rail system in Cancun, the Tren Cancun. I’m not a professional here, and I haven’t done any studies on traffic or the environment. But I was impressed by the speed and implementation of the Tren Maya, so I think this simpler project would be valuable as well.

Light Rail System

The Hotel Zone in Cancun is already highly developed, with two lanes of road in each direction. Restaurants and hotels are already placed on each side. It’s a very narrow strip of land, and there’s not a lot of opportunity for acquiring a large right-of-way for development. That means something like heavy rail wouldn’t work.

Minimizing the size of this development is important, but so is the cost. There may be interest in picking a narrow gauge, but I’d still recommend the standard gauge (4'8.5") (like Tren Maya). Taking advantage of standard parts and knowledge will make procurement easier.

Going with LRT with a low-floor will reduce the minimum dynamic envelope, reducing the amount of space necessary. A simple platform built up in the median of the Boulevard Kukulcán could give riders access to either direction while also giving access to weather shelter and countdown clocks.

So we could take up one road lane in each direction for light-rail. Ideally this would be exclusive use for rail, preventing cars from getting in the way. While some light-rail lines can also work with cars, in practice it just makes everyone slower. Rather, the goal is to take more cars off the road and encourage people to take the train first.

This incentive can be done more easily with hotel cooperation. Allowing hotels to give out free travel passes make it a lot easier to adopt. Or at the very least, placing kiosks in each hotel allow travelers to buy a pass using a credit card without ever having to exchange currencies.

Right now, there are a number of U-turn opportunities along the boulevard, allowing cars to switch between going north versus south. That is a problem for this plan, as it would mean cars running across rail lines and potentially causing collisions. Maybe that is a low risk, but it’s very easy to have collisions during grade crossings.

These are hard to fix based on limited land availability.A Michigan left would be infeasible, as well as other kinds of elevated ramps. I think it might be possible to enable grade-separated U-turns. Lowering the road below sea level about 6/7 feet could enable a car to drive below the trains at select spots. This might even make the street safer, since a car won’t be able to easily swerve between lanes in a hurried attempt to make a U-turn.

Maybe you could run a single track if necessary, particularly close to the terminal. I’m reluctant to do this, as having two tracks just provides more resilience for broken trains and it can lead to passenger delays while you wait for trains to clear. In NYC, having so many lines share a lot of the same rail, calling interlining, leads to a lot of regular logisitical problems.

But even if we just stick to two tracks, one for each direction, we don’t really get to have an express line. Perhaps you could try doing some of it, like one train every half hour or so. But you can’t go too fast if there’s trains in front and behind you. I do think local service is probably fine since the Hotel Zone isn’t that big, but if you can do four tracks it’s just better.

I did also consider grade separation on the rails too. Underground trains wouldn’t work well. Cancun’s tropical climate and the Hotel Zone’s small flat land between two large bodies of water immediately raises red flags for flooding. If a rainstorm can bring the MTA to its knees, it would be even worse there.

An elevated light rail could be a bit unsightly for people who want to get a good view of the lagoon from their hotel room window. It might add unwanted noise later at night.

In both scenarios, you’d need to incorporate the added expenses for elevators and stairs and building to grade. Tunneling is expensive, particularly if you want to mitigate climate risks today and in the future. Ultimately, just building at grade will make driving a bit inconvenient but I’m okay with that.

However, this does require ripping up parts of the median to build platforms, disturbing trees and green space. It’s not a lot of green space, but it would certainly be unfortunate. You could move the trees a bit, perhaps using this as an opportunity to add more greenery around the platform, on the platform walls, or even on the roof.

Is that necessary? Probably not. I think just selling the reduction of cars would show this project is net negative for carbon emissions. But cheap ways to do beautification are important in getting positive sentiment for new development.

Tranist Map

Now that we agree on what we’re building, it’s time to share some proposed maps. There are basically three lines that could be built. Certainly the Playa Line is the most important, but once you build that initial infrastructure it should build interest in getting people elsewhere in the city.

The terminal for all these potential lines should be the airport. It’s where tourists will start and end. It also makes it easy to connect with the Tren Maya station and allow people to transfer to a line further west through the Yucatan.

The Playa Line would take passengers from the airport all the way through the Hotel Zone down to the end. It would make it easier to shuttle passengers between stops in the zone.

1. Cancun Airport/Tren Maya
2. Hotel Zone South
3. Hotel Zone Mid-South
4. Playa Delfines
5. Hotel Zone Mid-North
6. Luxury Avenue
7. La Isla
8. Coco Bongo/Party Plaza/Cancun Center
9. Plaza Caracol
10. Hotel Zone North
11. Hotel Zone North-West
12. Playa Tortugas

I tried to ensure the stations were not too far apart from each other while giving plenty of access through the zone and then right to the airport.

An Airport Express line could use the same rails and just run:

1. Cancun Airport/Tren Maya
2. Hotel Zone South
3. Hotel Zone Mid-North
4. Hotel Zone North
5. Hotel Zone North-West

Which would serve customers a lot faster by skipping a number of stops.

The Downtown Connector Line would make it easier to get people across from the airport or the Playa line through Cancun’s city center, with a few stops to give them access to key shopping and cultural locations. Bus rapid transit could be used to help shuttle passengers west and east.

1. Cancun Airport/Tren Maya
2. Alfredo V. Bonfil
3. Plaza Las Americas
4. Av Tulum
5. Playa del Niño

The Riveria Line would be more ambitious, adding stations all along the river next to Highway 307. This would make it easier to build without major disruptions and would give travelers access to more of the state of Quintana Roo. And although some of these places are also served by Tren Maya, this would be more like a local service to the Tren Maya’s express. It should also be possible to transfer.

1. Cancun Airport/Tren Maya
2. Puerto Morelos/Tren Maya
3. Playa del Carmen North
4. Playa del Carmen Central/Tren Maya
5. Playa del Carmen South/XCaret
6. Xel-Ha Park
7. Tulum Archaeological Zone/Tren Maya
8. Tulum Town
9. Felipe Carrillo Puerto/Tren Maya
10. Bacalar/Tren Maya

Given the length of this route, it might make sense and should be easy to add additional stops. And while this does follow Highway 307, it might make sense to continue exploring ways to bring residents from the interior closer to these larger cities through additional service lines, or circle the line around west and follow another highway northbound.

Conclusion

Trains are cool. Public transit is cool. And as Mexico continues its development, the need for denser transit will become more apparent. This is just an idea I came up with after a few days spent in Cancun, and I’m sure there are many ways this could be improved. But I had a good time drawing maps and thinking about trains, so it was a worthwhile venture.