Seems baja TT enough.
I was at a meeting last week (Sept. 25) that dealt with proposed baja infrastructure projects.
The Baja State "Punta Colonet" director/point man Jose Rubio was to be at the meeting, but swin flu like symptoms :jawdrop: kept him made him a no show. Others filled for him though.
Anyway, here are some of the notes I took.
X The bidding process, which has already been delayed a couple of years, is supposedly going to happen around April 2010.
X A lot of port operators and railroads are not interested in bidding.
X Supposedly Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim showed interest in bidding on the project.
X Port cost is projected to be $3.5 billion. Originally it was projected at $5 billion - difference reflects downsizing in project
X The freight would move via rail out of Colonet. A rail line connecting it to MEXICALI would have to be built. The cost would be around $600 million, and a separate bidding process would be needed to build this. Talk also is of a connecting line to Ciudad Juarez also.
X The market of the port is not the Maquiladora market in Tijuana. Containers, on rail, shipped to the US via Calexico or El Paso and vice versa. Compete for Long Beach/LA port traffic to interior points in the US.
X A whole new city of 200,000 would need to be built in the area. And the State officials would make sure that the chaotic, unorganized, and poorly planned development that has been the norm in Baja Norte for so long would not be the case in Colonet. :smirk:
- My opinion. It ain't going to happen. No money, the demand for the port is not there, the infrastructure requirements alone doom the project, its too isolated. The big cheerleaders of this project are the guys that bought up the land in the area.
