Cancún Mobility Crisis Impacts Tourism and Daily Life

Cancún. The president of the Mexican Association of Inbound Tourism Agencies (AMATUR), Sergio González Rubiera, warned that the deterioration of mobility in Cancún and other destinations in Quintana Roo is already directly impacting social coexistence, mental health, quality of life, economic competitiveness, and the tourist image of the Mexican Caribbean.

He described the current situation as a disaster that manifests in the daily lives of thousands of citizens and visitors, forced to move at a “snail’s pace,” spend hours in traffic, arrive late to their activities, and live under constant stress caused by poorly planned construction, repairs during peak hours, and improvised decisions.

“Mobility is a human right and it is not being solved, but rather complicated, because it is not addressed comprehensively, and because they try to resolve it with ‘brainstorms’; there are no experts in the matter, there are no comprehensive solutions, it is not given priority, and what prevails is the brainstorm,” he lamented.

He even considered that the bridge over the Nichupté lagoon will not solve traffic congestion, neither in the hotel zone nor in the city center, but could intensify it, asserting that the lack of a proper landing on Kukulkán Boulevard will imply the elimination of a full lane from north to south, creating a bottleneck in the area that concentrates most of the municipality’s economic activity.

Furthermore, he questioned the project’s design, considering that the merging lanes are too narrow, representing a traffic risk similar to other poorly executed works in the region.

As a viable alternative, González Rubiera reopened the proposal to use the lagoon bodies for mass transportation of workers, an option that was ignored despite its efficiency, because transporting personnel from the Tajamar area to the hotel zone by sea would take only 13 minutes.

He proposed the creation of a large multimodal terminal in that area, with a dock, parking for five thousand vehicles, spaces for bicycles, and public transport platforms, from where vessels would depart every 20 minutes, thereby inhibiting car use and promoting massive, efficient, and dignified public transportation.

To this are added other problems, such as what happens around many schools, what happens on Colosio Boulevard which has been overwhelmed by the number of cars, public offices on strategic roadways, plus the excessive growth in the use of motorcycles and vans, and a lack of actions that solve the underlying problem.