Cancún's 995.9-million-peso works year, from Galaxias del Sol to El Diamante

Cancún's city council says it put 995.9 million pesos into public works in the second year of Mayor Ana Paty Peralta's government, 72.1% more than the budget approved in 2024. The total is the headline; the useful part is where it went, and the answer is mostly new asphalt, drainage wells, and a handful of neighborhoods that had been waiting years for proper streets.

Most of the construction news out of Cancún this year has been federal. The Nichupté lagoon bridge and the Kukulcán interchange, which we covered in Cancún's Kukulcán interchange is 57% built, are the projects with national budgets and ribbon-cutting dates. This is the other half of the picture: the municipality of Benito Juárez spending its own budget on the streets residents drive every day. Across the three annual investment programs from 2024 to 2026, the council puts the total at more than 2,369 million pesos, spread over 100 public works and 17 approved projects.

Where the money went

Paving is the largest line. The council's 19 September bulletin lists 33 paving works and projects with a combined investment of 929.4 million pesos, covering 483,310.91 square meters of road. The avenues named are Kabah, Huayacán, 135, 20 de Noviembre, Galaxias del Sol, Nazareth and Politécnico, plus the road junction at the city's entrance on the free highway from Mérida and what the council calls strategic complementary works for the Nichupté bridge's connections. "More paving than ever before in the history of Cancún," the mayor said on 17 September, while inspecting two of the avenues in the south of the city.

Galaxias del Sol, 45% done

On 30 September the mayor visited Avenida Galaxias del Sol, one of the busiest arteries in the city. "We have 45 percent progress on this work," she said, describing it as a project residents had asked for repeatedly. This is the second phase. The first rebuilt the stretch from Avenida Chac Mool to Avenida Madero; this one runs from Madero to Avenida Lak'in, which completes the artery. The contract covers 18,858.92 square meters of new asphalt seven centimeters thick, 782.70 meters of curbing, 12,826.57 meters of road markings, 48 road signs, the relocation of three concrete posts, and 15 absorption wells, the drainage shafts that let rainwater soak into the ground instead of standing on the road. According to the mayor, the wells already in place cleared the avenue faster after the recent rains.

Avenida 135, Nazareth and Huayacán

Two weeks earlier, on 17 September, the mayor reported Avenida 135 at 44% and Avenida Nazareth at 47%. The 135 job runs to 14 kilometers of road, about 30 kilometers counting both directions, and mixes methods: some stretches are being resurfaced with recycled asphalt by a machine known locally as "el dragón", while the roundabout is being rebuilt in hydraulic concrete. Nazareth, between Boulevard Luis Donaldo Colosio and Avenida Huayacán, is getting a complete repaving because, in the mayor's words, what was left of the base was completely deteriorated. The water utility, Aguakan, laid new drinking-water and drainage lines first. The council expects Nazareth to finish at the end of the year, with 14,590.86 square meters of asphalt and eight absorption wells, serving 27,344 residents. On Huayacán the figures are 94,412.40 square meters of rehabilitated asphalt and 7,735.20 square meters of concrete slabs.

El Diamante, from zero

The smallest project in the bulletins says the most about what the money is for. El Diamante, in Supermanzana 208, is one of the settlements the council is regularizing, a neighborhood that grew without the streets and services a planned district gets. On 30 September the mayor inspected an integrated works package there that will serve more than 180 families: 2,277.96 meters of concrete curbs, 4,900.60 meters of sidewalks, about 8,700 square meters of asphalt, 330 square meters of concrete ramps, 15 absorption wells with sand-trap catch basins, a transformer, and 98 LED street lights. She called it one of the most important works in the city.

El Diamante is one of eight neighborhoods the council says it has served this way between October 2024 and September 2026, alongside Tierra y Libertad I, Estrella del Mar, Riviera I, Riviera II, Real del Bosque, San Alfredo and Los Pinos, with a combined investment of 387.2 million pesos.

Beyond the asphalt

The same report counts work that is easier to miss. Under the program Cancún Fluye, 180 signalized intersections are maintained, 119 of them linked to a central control room on Avenida Xcaret. Twelve "safe crossings" have been built at the busiest pedestrian points, and seven "safe paths" near universities and schools. Since 2024 the city has added 274 absorption wells and re-drilled 62 more, and the Arboriza Cancún program has planted 7,603 native trees toward a target of 11,000 by 2027. On 25 September the council unanimously amended the 2026 investment program to add further projects, among them consolidating the drainage network in Supermanzanas 222, 223, 225 and 226.

What this does and does not show

These are the council's own numbers, published in bulletins that present the mayor's annual report, and the spending has not been independently audited. The progress percentages are the mayor's, given on site visits. The figures also need reading with care: the paving and neighborhood totals are described as global investments and together exceed the 995.9 million, and the neighborhood figure explicitly covers two years, so they are not a breakdown of this year's spending. The bulletins do not split the 995.9 million by line. Only Nazareth has a stated finish date; Galaxias del Sol and Avenida 135 do not. And half-built avenues in the rainy season are a nuisance for the people who live along them: on Nazareth, the mayor was still explaining to neighbors in mid-September why manholes stood above the road and strips lay open for the wells.

What the record does show is a city spending on the unglamorous layer underneath its tourism economy: drainage, curbs, lighting and road surface, in the neighborhoods where Cancún's workforce lives as much as on the routes visitors see. For anyone weighing a home in the city, that layer shapes daily life more than the headline projects do. For more on the city, see our Cancún location page or our guide to Tulum vs Cancún real estate.

Sources: Municipality of Benito Juárez, bulletins of 17 September (Avenida 135, Nazareth and Huayacán), 19 September (995.9 million pesos in public works), 25 September (amendments to the 2026 annual investment program) and 30 September 2026 (El Diamante; Avenida Galaxias del Sol).