The project took its lead from a 21st-century reevaluation of the street.  Once, streets were conduits of activity, but today they function more often as single-purpose barriers, obstructing pedestrian movement and yielding to cars. Acknowledging that cars are an integral part of the urban environment, this project argues that pedestrians and drivers should have equal access to streets. Reduced speeds, less delineation between sidewalk and street, and multifunctional surfaces that can toggle between serving as roads and serving as play spaces allow the park to extend into the streets, claiming every possible square foot of surface area. In the end, the new Cuernavaca Railway Linear Park proposal would give the city greater balance, accommodating the intensity of Mexico City’s urbanity while injecting a functioning landscape that will serve the city into the future.

 Appropriating the street space also provides the critical surface area needed to improve the city’s management of stormwater and groundwater. The project offers residents and visitors a diversity of ecology, landscape types, and experiences, many of which have been lost in the city’s expansion. These landscapes also offer space for the social programming that surrounding communities need. Here, the shelter of an underpass becomes a venue for sporting events, the Museo Soumaya becomes the backdrop to a new forum for the city, and a busy intersection becomes the centre for gathering the city’s detritus, a recycling centre and a lagoon for stormwater management. The park’s fluidity is captured most of all by the proposed Ferro-Tortuga, a rail-mounted platform that would move through the park, offering additional programs and services. At various intersections, the Ferro-Tortuga is a café; at others, a bandstand; and throughout, a means of moving both materials and people.

In the end, the new Cuernavaca Railway Linear Park proposal would give the city greater balance, accommodating the intensity of Mexico City’s urbanity while injecting a functioning landscape that will serve the city into the future.