Karina Niebla
08/15/2021 7:01 AM
Clarín.com
Cities
Updated 08/15/2021 7:01 AM
There are just weeks
until an unhappy birthday in Paternal: four years since the closure of its
San Martín train
station
, its point on the rails of connection with the world.
Both that stop and that of Villa Crespo still have no reopening date.
And two years have passed since the viaduct was inaugurated, the work for which both had stopped operating in the first place.
First a scam complaint.
Then the pandemic.
The work to rebuild the stations was delayed, then stopped, later they resumed but with the brakes on.
Meanwhile,
their surroundings continue to collapse
, with businesses and restaurants closed forever, unsafe corners, passengers juggling to get to their destination without the train.
“It is an unintelligible disorder.
What do you expect to finish the works?
”Asks Romina (43), who lives just six blocks from the Villa Crespo station (ex Chacarita), but with the station closed, she must get off in Palermo and complete the journey by bus or bike.
"What are they waiting for to finish the stations?", The residents of Villa Crespo and La Paternal ask themselves.
Photo Emmanuel Fernández
"If the station were open, the train would leave me 30 blocks closer,"
adds León (32), a resident of Villa Crespo.
Hernán (50), who lives in Chacarita and took the San Martín to go to Retiro, "because it is more comfortable and faster than the subway."
No more.
The closure of the stations affects even those who are not passengers.
“It is horrible to have to go through
closed places
.
It gives a feeling of carelessness, dirt, danger ”, says Alicia Meichtry (40), from Villa Crespo.
An abandonment that his neighbor Federico Zamudio (34) also perceives: “The land under the viaduct could be used for green spaces, bike paths, stalls.
Today
that area is very abandoned
”.
The residents of La Paternal and Villa Crespo complain about the abandonment around the closed stations.
Photo Emmanuel Fernández
A few meters from that station, in Corrientes at 6100, Noss Calzados lost seven out of every ten customers.
So calculates its owner, Gabriel, who is "affected a lot" that Villa Crespo does not reopen.
“
Sales were down horribly.
Some businesses had to close, ”he says, and points out empty premises, on his block and the next.
The pandemic was the coup de grace.
Near La Paternal station,
what little there was closed
.
Even the gastronomic places whose owners spoke with
Clarín
on the subject, a year and a half ago.
"I live in José C. Paz and the train would save my life," said Nora Sierra, who worked at La Barra in Warnes and Osorio.
On the corner with Garmendia, Facundo had said that his Happiness restaurant billed 60% less.
Until it didn't even open.
The San Martín train passes overhead for the residents of Villa Crespo and La Paternal, but they have to walk a long way to catch it.
Photo Emmanuel Fernández
"Everything died here, they left it because of the quarantine and the lack of a station," observes Gabriel, a neighbor, and points to the corner where a zinguería replaced the bar La Barra.
“I
miss the train.
I used to use it to go out at night.
You could go back to the Caseros or Palermo touch, or go straight to Retiro -a Señora-.
Now
I have to take two buses
, or
else
combine with the subway ”.
Scam and pandemic
Since September 2017, the La Paternal station has not worked: it was closed due to the construction of the elevated tracks between Palermo and its neighborhood.
Villa Crespo would last a while longer, until May 2018, when the formwork of a lintel of the viaduct collapsed and the service was restricted between Villa del Parque and Cabred.
The stations were
dismantled to make way for their elevated versions
, which were to see the light of day in August 2019, a month after the inauguration of the viaduct.
But
the works were delayed and the promised date passed
.
By September of that year they had stopped completely.
Green-Rottio's company stopped paying subcontractors and the City Government terminated the contract.
The work on the stations is advanced, but at a standstill.
And there is no reopening date.
Photo Emmanuel Fernández
Then came
the pandemic
and with it the reallocation of resources.
That is why the schedule, which was to be resumed in March 2020, was interrupted again.
Today Buenos Aires government sources admit that
the reopening of the stations still has no date
.
And they clarify that beforehand the execution of the missing works must be coordinated with the Ministry of Transportation of the Nation.
In the way
Where it
does advance is on the tracks
.
AUSA, the Buenos Aires government company that supervises the works, reports that this year it worked together with the Buenos Aires government to level them in those sections and place acoustic panels on the way to La Paternal.
The sector between Newbery and Dorrego has already been completed and that of the station itself remains, which will be completed in December.
The
lintels of the viaduct and the land below
, from La Paternal to Santos Dumont Street,
were
also
cleaned
.
Now the storm drains are being laid from that station to Newbery Street, a task that will be complete before the end of the month.
Although work is being carried out on the tracks, there is no progress at the stations.
Photo Emmanuel Fernández
Paradoxically,
La Paternal is the most advanced station
: the platforms, posters and coats are ready, although the seats are missing.
In Villa Crespo much more remains: there are no signs or chairs, and the floors are not even ready.
An unjustifiable delay for a line in which more than a million trips were made in June and that crosses the heart of the City every day.
NS
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