Ecuador’s capital develops metro system

In September, the TBM named Luz de América drilled its first 670 meters of the Line 1 in San Francisco de Quito, the capital of Ecuador and the second largest city in the country.

Quito’s metro design

Quito’s metro design
Source: acciona.com

The TBM was commissioned for Quito by the Spanish company ACCIONA Construction, involved into the large infrastructure projects around the globe. Luz de América (“the light if America”) is one of three TBMs working at the project, the other two are La Guaragua and La Carolina.

Luz de América reached the first station on its way – Cardenal de la Torre. After the maintenance work the TBM will continue its work towards the station El Recreo. The total length of the Line 1 is 22.6 km. It will include 15 stations.


The line will play the important role in the system of the public transportation. The completion of its construction is estimated as 42%. The construction work began in December, 2012. It is planned to be commissioned in July, 2019.


The Herrenknecht TBM at the construction of the metro in Quito

The Herrenknecht TBM at the construction of the metro in Quito
Source: herrenknecht.com

For the utilities network relocation the 300 meters long infiltration tunnels were constructed, with the width of 4 meters and height of 4.3 meters, to insure the free pass of the TBM. The next goal of Luz de América – 8.1 km long running tunnel between the stations Solanda and La Alameda.

Tell us about our article to your friends,
sharing a link in a social network

Comments (0)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I hereby confirm that I am familiar with the privacy policy of
and agree to the processing of personal data. Read more

Наверх