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Guayaquil is a diverse, densely populated coastal city of 3.6 million on the estuary of the Guayas River at the Pacific Ocean. It is the largest and most populous city in Ecuador, and its location makes it a critical port city and economic hub for Ecuador and the Andean region.
Guayaquil's urban area primarily sprawls north-south for around 25 kilometres. From the river bank, most of Guayaquil sprawls west for about 7 kilometres, though the extent of urbanization reaches up to 15 kilometres from the Guayas River in the northwest suburbs. While most of the urban population lives on the west bank of the Guayas River, some 300,000 people live on the east bank in Durán. Guayaquil's urban fabric is divided and bounded by large hills, many rivers, and untouched rainforest.
This concept imagines a Guayaquil with a reasonable but comprehensive rapid transit network building upon present-day mass transit use, aimed at serving dense areas of the city, important job centres, and underserviced communities.
A breakdown of mobility in Guayaquil
A breakdown of mobility in Guayaquil
Top image: Aerovía aerial tramway across the Rio Guayas (by Carlitos Manuel Ronquillo Ordóñez, 2021 CC BY-SA 4.0)
Middle image: Guayaquil from above (by Danny Lema)
Bottom Image: Metrovía bus at a BRT station in the city centre (by Carlitos Manuel Ronquillo Ordóñez, 2021 CC BY-SA 4.0)
Guayaquil's street network is grid-based, with large boulevards carrying most traffic volume in the city. No continuous urban highways have been built in Guayaquil, though a lengthy peripheral highway navigates the suburban areas.
As with the layout of the urban area, most traffic volume flows north-south. The north suburbs contain large-scale industrial uses, whereas the southern suburb of Guasmo is home to the Port of Guayaquil. The city centre is a financial, cultural, and tourism hub. Together, these areas are home to the highest concentration of jobs and the greatest pressure on transportation.
Large hills and a windy river cutting east-west through the middle of the city (just north of the city centre) bisect the road network.
Buses
Buses
Opened in 2006, Metrovía forms the backbone of mass transit in Guayaquil. The system is composed of four BRT trunks linked to numerous feeder bus routes across the city.
240,000 and 250,000 daily trips are respectively taken on Line 2 and 3, the busiest Metrovía corridors. The BRT system primarily serves north-south trips, following the contours of the urban area (system map).
Aerial Tramway
Aerial Tramway
Aerovía is 5-stop aerial tramway opened in 2020 to connect Guayaquil's city centre to Durán, spanning the Guayas River. Fare agreements in place allow free transfers between Aerovía, Metrovía, and urban buses in Durán. Before Aerovía, the sole public transit crossing of the river was via bus on the traffic-clogged National Unity Bridge.
Drafting up a rapid transit sketch
Drafting up a rapid transit sketch
In sketching this transit network, there are four main goals that should produce high ridership and equitable outcomes:
Building on existing high-demand transportation corridors
Connecting areas of high population and employment densities
Linking urban areas divided by geographic constraints
Binding lower-income and underserved communities that benefit most from improved public transit access
Guayaquil is a fairly dense city in all areas, and it has a generous spread of small-scale commercial activity as is typical in Latin American cities.
I will refer to the above map of Guayaquil divided into seven zones to help describe the logic of each corridor.
City Centre: high employment density, tourism centre
Guasmo and south suburbs: very high population density, large industrial employment centres
Alborada, Bastión Popular, and north suburbs: medium-high population density, large industrial employment centres, some lack of public investment
Durán: medium population density, low incomes, large industrial employment centres, lack of public investment
Batallón del Suburbio and west suburbs: very high population density, some lack of public investment
Monte Sinaí and northwest suburbs: medium population density, significant lack of public investment
Priority 1 - Building an initial transit spine
Building a north-south spine that crosses through the city centre, replicating the bulk of existing transport demand in the region (both vehicular and Metrovía), and immediately connecting many key destinations.
Cross-river rail from Guayaquil to Durán, addressing a major metropolitan and regional bottleneck for transportation
Priority 2 - Expanding access to key centres
Connecting the city centre and inner western suburbs
Expanding transit access in the northern suburbs
Priority 3 - Suburb-to-suburb transit
Peripheral transit link between the western suburbs and Guasmo
Peripheral transit link to distant underserved suburbs in the northwest, like Monte Sinaí.
Tren Guayas:
Tren Guayas:
A rapid transit system for Guayaquil
A rapid transit system for Guayaquil
guayaquil crayon.pngBased on the priorities described earlier, I have drawn up a Guayaquil rapid transit scheme consisting of:
4 metro rail lines, with a length of 83.1 kilometres and 76 stations
3 bus rapid transit lines, with a length of 45.2 kilometres and over 50 stations
1 (existing) aerial tramway, with a length of 4 kilometres and 5 stations
Design and Implementation of the Metro
Design and Implementation of the Metro
The metro system is a blend of large-scale metro and smaller scale rail lines. Nearly all commutes to the city centre are 30 minutes or less from any metro station. In line with the priorities described earlier, the metro network effectively links the most population and employment-dense areas of Guayaquil (see map below). Guayaquil Metro could support up to 1.5 million daily boardings after the build-out of these four lines.
To reduce costs and delays, and make the best use of limited funds, 68% of the metro system is at grade or elevated. A full map of surface, tunnel, and elevated alignments can be found at the link below. Lines 1 and 2, serving the higher-priority corridors, are built as standard large-scale metros, whereas Line 3 and Line 4 are light rapid transit.
For the handful of underground stations in central Guayaquil, they will share a similar mined design found in Quito and Madrid to minimize disruption in the most congested area of the city. Centenario Station will be the heart of the system, and likely the busiest station.
41.26 km elevated, 15.61 km at grade, 26.2 km tunnelled
Line 1 and Line 2
Line 1 and Line 2
Line 1 (22 km) and Line 2 (26 km) will be the primary spines of the system and would be constructed in earlier phases, covering all Priority 1 and some Priority 2 transit links. Line 1 and Line 2 are expected to be the busiest lines in the system.
As such, these lines will be designed identically with a capacity of up to 45,000 passengers per direction per hour. To save costs and reap the benefits of using pre-existing standards, the infrastructure, trains, and most characteristics of Line 1 and Line 2 will be identical to Quito Metro, an off-the-shelf metro based on the Madrid Metro. This move saves costs and strengthens state-building capacity by establishing a unified metro system standard across Ecuador's two largest cities.
Part of the construction of Line 1 will include a new 3-kilometre rail bridge across the Rio Guayas, parallel to the National Unity Bridge.
Line 3 and Line 4
Line 3 and Line 4
Line 3 (18 km) and Line 4 (16 km) are light rail lines modelled after those in Edmonton and Guadalajara. This pair of lines serve suburb-to-suburb trips and gaps in the network alongside BRT. As a smaller-scale system with 30-60 metre platforms, it is easier to build in smaller neighbourhoods and tailored to lower ridership. To ensure trains are fairly fast and reliable to a similar degree as a grade-separated metro, the system will use crossing gates at surface intersections. Accordingly, they will be considered part of the metro network.
As Line 3 operates in more densely populated areas, larger 60-metre trains and stations will be used.
Transit times to Centenario from various metro terminals
Transit times to Centenario from various metro terminals
Guasmo: ~20 minutes (9.7 km)
Suscal: ~24 minutes (9.3 km)
San Eduardo: ~20 minutes (7.7 km)
Monte Sinai: ~35 minutes (19.4 km)
Bastión Popular: ~27 minutes (16.5 km)
Terminal Durán: ~17 minutes (13.0 km)
Changing role of Metrovía BRT
Changing role of Metrovía BRT
As the metro would replace most of the high-volume Metrovía corridors in Guayaquil, the role of Metrovía would shift from forming primary transit trunks towards more peripheral and coverage-based corridors. Portions of Metrovía will be decommissioned as the metro network opens, while other portions will remain for new BRT lines and for feeder buses to access metro station terminals. BRT will be rebranded with letters to avoid confusion with the metro.
Line A is a reconfiguration of Metrovía Line 1, extended to serve the Port of Guayaquil in the south and providing transit coverage between city centre and Bellavista and linking various metro lines
Line B also repurposes existing Metrovía corridors into the city centre, and extends to become an east-west peripheral line across the northern suburbs of Guayaquil, providing key perpendicular connections with the metro.
Line C is a completely new higher-speed BRT addressing the Priority 3 transit link between the western suburbs (from Suscal Metro Station) to Guasmo
Concluding thoughts
Concluding thoughts
The development of the Quito Metro has demonstrated that Ecuador can organize and execute large-scale rail transit projects. With that, it is logical that Ecuador's economic centre and most populous city, Guayaquil, can support a metro system.
Studies on the Quito Metro began in the 1990s, and continued as BRT was developed in the 2000s. As the bus system collapsed under the weight of Quito's transit needs, the long-overdue metro opened in 2023. Now is an opportune time for Guayaquil to begin planning a metro system of its own, borrowing the expertise and lessons (good and bad) from the Quito Metro. Like pre-metro Quito, Guayaquil overwhelmingly relies on an overcrowded network of buses. For a city of this size and density, BRT can only be a supporting step in the rapid transit ladder.
A rapid rail system will decongest the city and have economic impacts in the greater region; for example, a new metro bridge across the Rio Guayas relieves congestion on existing bridges used by commercial traffic accessing the Port of Guayaquil from the rest of Ecuador.
Overall, this transit vision attempts to link together Ecuador's largest city and build upon the existing transit infrastructure, bolster public investment and connections to the city's most impoverished suburban areas, provide more peripheral bus and train service, and break the limitations of a road-based transportation network warped by rivers and hills.
Useful references
Useful references
In determination of the level of public investment in different areas of Guayaquil, this publication was useful as a snapshot of the distribution of basic public services:
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