San Miguelito cable-car contract is signed and headed to Contraloría
If you live in San Miguelito, connect through Cincuentenario on Metro Line 2, or care about long-term traffic relief on the north side of the metro area, Metro de Panamá just crossed a contractual milestone that was stuck for months after a desert bidding round.
On 28 September 2026, Metro de Panamá, S.A. and Doppelmayr Panamá, Corp. signed the construction contract for the Teleférico de Panamá y San Miguelito. Telemetro, Crítica, Infobae, and SNIP confirm the next step: the file goes to the Contraloría General for review and refrendo. Without that endorsement, work cannot lawfully advance to an orden de proceder.
Project snapshot
- Length: about 6.6 km
- Stations (6): Balboa, Cincuentenario, Samaria, Mano de Piedra, Valle de Urracá, Torrijos Carter
- Award amount cited in Metro/TVN/Crítica coverage: B/.255,163,788.03 (about $255.1M), below a prior $270M reference price in earlier La Prensa reporting
- Capacity figure used in prior Metro briefings: about 2,800 passengers per hour per direction
- Integration: connection to Metro Line 2 at Cincuentenario
Earlier La Prensa reporting (Sep 5 phase) said construction would run about 30 months after the orden de proceder, plus about six months of closeout, pointing to operations around early 2029 if the calendar holds. Orden de proceder had been sketched for late 2026 pending Contraloría.
How we got here
A May 2026 concession-style tender went desierta after prequalified groups failed to bank the deal. Metro later restarted contractor selection and awarded Doppelmayr. The Sep 28 signing closes joint contract-review tables and moves the file into public audit.
La Prensa also flagged that some families in Valle de Urracá, Mano de Piedra, Torrijos Carter, Samaria, Río Abajo, and Monte Oscuro may need resettlement or compensation. Exact housing counts were not yet public.
Bottom line for expats
This is real progress, still one Controllership gate away from shovels. Expect multi-year construction disruption near station corridors before any commute win. For relocators weighing San Miguelito vs. other districts, treat 2029 service as a planning assumption, not a promise, until refrendo and orden de proceder land.