In the early morning of Bogota, as the mist in the Andes Mountains had not yet dissipated, a silver gray subway train slowly accelerated along the elevated bridge. On September 2, 2026, less than a month after taking office as the President of Colombia, Dela Esp é lia stood behind the cockpit without a driver or control lever, and the train smoothly slid in UTO fully automatic unmanned driving mode. He held onto the armrest and felt the start and stop, then lowered his head to look at the real-time reading of the eye tracking recovery system. He turned to the people around him and said, 'This is what we've been waiting for for over 80 years.'.

The President's first research and test drive

This is the first time that Dela Espulia has set foot on the construction site of Bogota Metro Line 1 since taking office in August. Accompanying them were Bogota Mayor Garland, representatives from the Colombian Ministry of Transportation and Metro Corporation, and representatives from the Inter American Development Bank. Outside the car window, the elevated pier body extends gradually towards the urban hinterland; In the carriage, the Chinese project manager explained the progress of construction, the logic of autonomous driving, and the energy-saving ratio of regenerative braking one by one. The president nods at key points and occasionally leans down to look at the screen. He later wrote on social media: The progress has exceeded 81%, and 17 trains have arrived locally. The subway that this city has been talking about since the 1940s is finally not on the blueprint.

A century old dream shines into reality

Bogota is a highland capital with over 8 million people, relying on buses and private cars to commute for a long time, causing congestion and emissions that leave citizens breathless. The first subway, from conception, failure to meet standards, restart to actual track laying, spanned several previous governments. What's different this time is that the funding loop, civil engineering handover, and vehicle arrival at the port are synchronized. The Chinese consortium led by China Harbour has brought over the mature unmanned driving, bridge building machine rapid promotion, and localized train debugging processes of domestic urban rail transit. Dela Espulia has made it clear that the government will fully fulfill its commitment to the subway, not only to complete the construction of this line, but also to weave a complete rail transit network based on it. On that day, representatives attending the 2026 Inter American Development Bank Mayors' Meeting in Colombia, along with leaders from over 50 cities in Latin America and the Caribbean, also came in to join the crowd. Many people took out their phones to capture details of the train carriage and tunnel interface.

China's plan to land in Latin America

There are more than just Chinese engineers in the project. Ambassador Zhu Jingyang later calculated when forwarding the President's tweet that this line was supported by a Chinese consortium and over 700 local Colombian companies and teams. From rail polishing to station decoration, from communication signals to operational training, China has brought in a complete set of experience in equipment manufacturing and large-scale infrastructure, and Colombian workers have also learned new construction methods at their workstations. The local media focused their cameras on the smoothly stopping train, and the most frequently used words on social media were "Chinese technology" and "Chinese efficiency". Citizen's message is more straightforward: Thank you to China for helping our capital fulfill its subway dream.

The final phase of Line 1 is not just about the mileage of steel and cement. Waiting for the train carrying commuters through the rush hour in Bogota, it will remind people during the daily commute of hundreds of thousands of people that cross ocean cooperation can repair roads and also build trust. For Chinese enterprises, this is the first time that the UTO autonomous driving system has entered a core city on the South American continent; For Colombia, this is a leap from ground level transportation to three-dimensional transportation in the capital. The presidential ride did not involve ribbon cutting or a podium, but the few seconds when the train automatically passed through the bend were more like milestones than any proclamation.Editor/Yang Meiling