Greater Mexico City - Transportation

Transportation

Greater Mexico City is connected through a private network of toll expressways to the nearby cities of Querétaro, Toluca, Cuernavaca, Pachuca and Puebla. Internally, the Federal District is serviced by arterial roads, locally called ejes viales, while the metro area is connected by two ring roads: the Periférico and Circuito Interior, with an elevated highway running on top of the first one. In 2007 the Eje Troncal Metropolitano will be finished, a highway that will connect Xochimilco with Ciudad Azteca.

The federal government has started the construction of a toll expressway that would connect the expressways of Querétaro and Puebla, so that traffic moving across the country would not have to go into the city. The project is partially completed and local residents of the outermost municipalities use it as a high-speed alternative to travel across the suburbs without having to use the internal arterial roads of the city.

The most important public transportation is the metro, one of the largest in the world with 207 km and 175 stations, that only services Mexico City proper, even though it is further extended by the Xochimilco Light Rail and new lines A and B. A commuter train, the Tren Suburbano, serve several municipalities of the metropolitan area since it started operating by mid-2007, with new lines planned.

Unlike other large metropolitan areas, Greater Mexico City is served by only one airport, the Mexico City International Airport or best known as Benito Juárez International Airport, whose traffic exceeds the current capacity. The 2000-2006 federal administrations proposed the construction of a second airport for the metropolitan area to be located at the municipality of Texcoco. Local residents, however, opposed the project, and the government decided to build a second terminal on the restricted area of the current airport, and decentralize flights to the nearby metropolitan areas of Toluca, Puebla, Pachuca and Cuernavaca, which, along with Greater Mexico City, conform a megalopolis (known in Spanish as a corona regional or ciudad-región).