The rush to finish the so-called Golden Line resulted in “a frenzied construction process that began before a master plan had been finalized and produced a Metro line with defects from the start,” the Times said. The approximately US $2 billion line, which runs across southern Mexico City from Mixcoac in the west to Tláhuac in the east, has been plagued by problems since it opened, and about half of the line was out of service for months in 2014 as structural repairs were carried out. The apparently shoddy construction may be the result of rushing to complete construction because Ebrard wanted to open Line 12 before his term as mayor concluded in 2012 in order to boost his future political prospects, the newspaper said. The purpose of the studs installed during construction was to secure the overpass to its support beams and strengthen the overpass’ integrity.
The Times said it was told by people familiar with the official investigations that the conclusion that bad welds of metal studs connecting steel beams to a concrete slab caused the overpass to collapse is one of the main explanations for the crash that is under consideration by city officials.
Thousands of photos of the crash site, located in the southeast of Mexico City, were reviewed by several leading engineers who reached the same conclusion, the newspaper said: “The steel studs that were vital to the strength of the overpass - linchpins of the entire structure - appear to have failed because of bad welds, critical mistakes that likely caused the crash.” The Times said that its probe, which was based on years of government records, interviews with people who worked on construction of Line 12 and expert analysis of evidence from the site of the crash, “found serious flaws in the basic construction of the Metro that appear to have led directly to its collapse.”
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