The truce over the works on the A-5 blows up: there will be reinforcements for Cercanías, Metro and buses, but without a joint plan

For the municipal spokesperson, the meeting has been “disappointing.” Above all, due to the “institutional disloyalty” of the Ministry of Transportation, which leaked its intentions hours before the meeting. The most surprising of all was “delay works until March» to reinforce so that Adif could reinforce the Cercanías line C-5.

“Regional trains are going to be reinforced from minute one,” promised Álvaro Fernández Heredia, general secretary of Sustainable Mobility of the Ministry of Transport, at the end of the meeting. His proposal includes increasing between 25% and 40% the capacity of Cercanías services, between 3,000 and 4,500 seats per hour in each direction, which means lowering the frequency of trains from five to four minutes. However, they requested this postponement of the works to also include a third auxiliary road to cover the route between Móstoles-Atocha without passing through Fuenlabrada, which would allow the frequency to be further reduced to three minutes. For the city council, “the ministry is making excuses to delay the works on the A-5.” »The data they have provided us says that they have a capacity for 47,700 additional places without carrying out the work«, he admits.

The reinforcement of Cercanías is not, however, the only train crash against the clock between the Ministry and the municipal government. The free nature of the A-5 is still up in the air, although all localities have requested it, except Alcorcón, where the socialist Candelaria Testa governs. The ministry is “open” to continue talking about making the A-5 free of charge, but not to paying for it in its entirety. In his opinion, it should be the promoter of the works, that is, the city council, who ensures the financing. «The ministry puts excuses for poor payer, “He wants to hit the city councils with radio 5,” Carabante highlighted. “We want it to be treated the same as the rest, the same as the municipalities in the province of Alicante, where the AP-7 is free and paid for in full by the ministry.” In this regard, the Puente branch explained that this is a “pilot project.”

The only socialist mayor of the A-5 corridor has also shown the (political) disagreement of the institutions. “We are going straight towards chaos, because there is no mobility plan, it is all improvisation and imposition,” he said. The mayor of Alcorcón states, willing to contribute funds to support the free R-5, that the city council of the capital “is thinking about its neighbors” only, and not those of the rest of the municipalities.

The interurbans

Their main complaint has to do with the interurban bus lines, another workhorse of the Ministry of Transportation, which “are going to be spent in Cuatro Vientos, and in my municipality in Puerta del Sur, which is technically unfeasible.” More specifically, he assures that «There are 26 lines that move 100,000 people every day, half to Príncipe Pío and the rest back. And those people do not fit in Cuatro Vientos or in Renfe or in Metro. That is why he asks for “a delay in the works, to make a serious and reasonable mobility plan together.”

In this regard, and in a more cordial tone, the regional government recalled that they are not promoters of the work, but they are interested in all administrations coordinating to minimize the inconvenience that it will cause to citizens. For this reason, they are going to evaluate all the “new proposals that have been put on the table”, including that of the intercity bus entrance lane to the capital. But they will do it calmly, “not in a hurry”, and taking into account elements that “until now we did not know, such as how much reinforcement there was going to be in Cercanías.”

For its part, Madrid has currently announced a 7.3% reinforcement of affected EMT routes, all those that pass through the A-5 (36, 29, 65) and the alternatives (17, 34 and 138). They will also improve the capacity of the Metro (lines 5 and 10) by 10%, as well as the Light Metro (ML3).

The start of the works

Meanwhile, the Madrid City Council has begun this week the first traffic alteration on the Extremadura highway (A-5) with an occupation of 300 meters of the outer lane of the northern road, as part of the works to bury the road. As reported by the delegate of Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility of the Madrid City Council, Borja Carabante, on his social networks, the objective of this occupation will be to be able to divert traffic to the northern road heading out of Madrid. There will be a partial demolition of the sidewalk parallel to the road in the exit direction, and the alternative pedestrian route will be along Calle del Greco, one of the bus stops in that area will also be moved although it will remain on the same street.

Although this is the first disruption to traffic, the cuts and reduction in road capacity will occur in the second half of December. While the work lasts, the council promised, the A-5 will maintain two operational lanes in each direction. Initially, the two lanes in each direction will be located on one side of the road while the operators work on the other. Once finished, the same will be done on the opposite side.