Mexico City Metro evaluates green wall maintenance

Mexico City's Metro is closely monitoring the performance of the green walls recently installed in stations along Line 2, including the Zócalo station. Adrián Rubalcava, the Metro's Director General, stated that the supplier has guaranteed the replacement of any plants that fail to thrive in the unique conditions of the subway environment.

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The companies that executed the work are helping the conditions so that the plants remain alive. It is practically a very innovative project, we are even visualizing the stress that the plants are receiving in a place with so much influx, with the heat of the metro, and we are precisely seeing how this lighting scheme, the simulation of day and night, is going to work, and that is leading us to be able to analyze if it is working as expected or not.

Rubalcava acknowledged the significant stress plants endure within the Metro system, citing user traffic and the high temperatures common in stations. The Metro is currently analyzing whether the green wall project is meeting expectations. The project involves innovative elements like simulated day-night lighting cycles to support plant life.

"The companies that executed the work are helping the conditions so that the plants remain alive. It is practically a very innovative project, we are even visualizing the stress that the plants are receiving in a place with so much influx, with the heat of the metro, and we are precisely seeing how this lighting scheme, the simulation of day and night, is going to work, and that is leading us to be able to analyze if it is working as expected or not," Rubalcava told reporters.

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The supplier guarantees the replacement of the plants until they function.

The Metro holds a guarantee from the supplier: if the green walls do not function as intended, the plants will be replaced at no additional cost until they are successfully established. The maintenance responsibility initially falls to the companies that constructed the stations, as they contracted the green wall installation. These companies will cover seven months of maintenance to ensure the plants' survival before the Metro takes over the responsibility for ongoing upkeep.

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The supplier with whom that contract was made, did not make it directly with the Metro, but with each of the companies that built the stations, each company that built the stations decided whether to install a green wall or not.

The project's cost is reported at 5,600 pesos per square meter, which Rubalcava considered a low price compared to the public market rate of 7,400 pesos per square meter. This cost-effectiveness was highlighted as a key benefit of the initiative.

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We obtained a very low cost.