Transmetro Barranquilla-Soledad: challenges for metropolitan management of transport projects in a context of territorial unbalances

Abstract

This article addresses the management process of the Integrated Mass

Transit System (SITM) Transmetro (Barranquilla and Soledad, Colombia),

analyzing three relationships: between government levels, between

municipalities and between the public and private sector, based on a documentary

review of the regulatory framework, interviews with the project

stakeholders and content analysis of press articles. Findings suggest

that this application of the national SITM program, despite its attempt to

overcome the management obstacles presented in the first versions of the

systems (like Bogota’s Transmilenio and Pereira’s Megabus), has had to

face more structural problems like the territorial inequities between the

metropolitan nucleus and the metropolized municipality, which hinders

the process of metropolitan management of large-scale urban projects.