Guayaquil marks an important milestone this month in its development with the inauguration of an unprecedented transportation system. It is the Aerovía air system, which will operate with the cabins at half their capacity, thanks to biosanitary measures to avoid COVID-19.
Mayor Cynthia Viteri, who on Thursday 17 participated in an interview in one of those booths while making the full route between Guayaquil-Durán-Guayaquil, says that this system is unique in the country and gives way to what she calls the “New City “. .
He explains: “Mobility is part of people’s daily lives. You can get on Aerovía, you can get on an electric bus or you can take an electric taxi, you can take Metrovía or a public bicycle, where you are already working. and we have already completed about 35 kilometers of bike lanes out of the 100 that are designed … “.
The mayor is optimistic about the inauguration even in the pandemic and the future of Aerovía. “This city, even with the tragedy it experienced now in 2020, has never stopped working, this is something else. This city moved, functioned, breathed and was built in the middle of the pandemic. He did it because if he hadn’t done it, we wouldn’t be sitting here; if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have opened the envelopes of the new Los Merinos treatment plant, which is an investment of about $ 180 million; if we hadn’t done it, we wouldn’t have stopped[spitalul]Bicentennial. In other words, the pandemic has accelerated the processes and changed the vision you had of the city, “says the official.
And he adds: “If before we did not think of bike lanes, electric buses, pedestrians – because both Panama and October 9 will be pedestrian and then we intend to do only one until we reach the municipality only on foot, with meals, with singers, a kind of walk where you can enjoy the city – which came to us because of COVID-19. From all evil you can get something good. “
Aerovía could only remain as a tourist walk, as Durán users, to whom the service is mainly addressed, prefer to continue to use buses and taxirrutas. Viteri reiterates that the system has the capacity to mobilize 40,000 people a day and kisses an advantage.
He points out that there are mobility studies: “We know approximately how many people would move on the Airway, it is not a surprise, we do not play raffle, here we know what is the capacity and the need to be able to transport in less than 20 minutes from They will last the Guayaquil. The show is also wonderful and many people did not take a taxi route, they took about three means of transport … Then they pay three times their ticket and take three times the time they are going to take now. Here (Aerovía) it takes between 17 and 20 minutes, before lasting between 40 and an hour. This takes your time, takes your life away from your family and takes your time from work. “
New stage
The new system would not only be on the route to Durán. The mayor announces that a second route is already being considered. This would be from downtown Guayaquil to Mapsingue. “It is the one with the greatest possibility of being our second point of creation. It will pass through Urdesa and the State University. And another way to interconnect the city, he was talking to Mayor Yúnez, is a new Guayaquil-Samborondón bridge. where he leaves from and where he ends up, we are in those conversations “, he says.
During the cabin tour with this newspaper, the mayor also plans to improve the roofs of some houses located on the route from Quito Boulevard to Julián Coronel.
Service
Aerovía service will be open daily from 05:00 to 23:00. The ticket costs USD 0.70. The first time, you need to buy a card with a balance of 2 USD. Stations: Av. Quito and October 9; Julián Coronel and Quito; Malecón and Loja, and in Durán. (I)