Four mayors of the coast get a promise in Madrid about the dismantling of the railroad

Salou. Costa Dorada. 29 May 2018. The activities of the mayors of Salou, Vandellòs-l'Hospitalet de l'Infant, Cambrils, and Mont-roig del Camp, who claim that the railway situation of the Costa Dorada is not forgotten, have managed to take a step forward today. The four mayors have traveled to Madrid, where they have met with the Secretary of State Infrastructure, who has taken away the promise that the railroad that crosses their municipalities will be dismantled at the time the Mediterranean Corridor becomes operational.

In addition, Pere Granados, mayor of Salou, has requested that the planning be sent on how and when these works will be carried out, although he has shown his satisfaction for having achieved this commitment from the State. It was precisely the Mayor of Salou who recalled that the holding of a "four-party" meeting involving the Generalitat, PortAventura, City Council and State is pending.

At the meeting, held at the Ministry of Development, were Julio Gómez-Pomar, Secretary of State for Infrastructure, Transport and Housing, accompanied by representatives of ADIF, Renfe and the Government Sub-delegation in Tarragona, and with the assistance of the mayor of Cambrils, Camino Mendoza; and the mayors of Salou, Pere Granados; from Mont-roig del Camp, Fran Morancho; and Vandellòs i l'Hospitalet, Alfons Garcia.

In the meeting of this Monday, May 28, the president of ADIF, Juan Bravo, has attended, in addition to the mayors and the secretary of Infrastructure of the State; the general director of Exploitation and Construction of ADIF, Isabel Pardo; the Secretary General of Infrastructures, Manuel Niño; the subdelegate of the Government of the State in Tarragona, Jordi Sierra; the director of Operations of Renfe, Francisco Minayo de la Cruz; and the deputy director general of Railway Planning, Jorge Ballesteros.

Immediate dismantling

The dismantling of the railway infrastructure will consist of the physical lifting of the railroads, catenaries and crossings, and will be borne by the public company Emfesa through a direct contract, according to Isabel Pardo, general director of Exploitation and Construction of ADIF.

At the same time, a project will be drafted to integrate the layout into the surrounding area in order to guarantee compliance with the environmental impact statement envisaged in the start-up of the Mediterranean Corridor, which is expected to enter service in the coming months. This project, whose drafting will be put out to public tender in June, should also serve to save the barrier effect, creating new crossing points in the layout, favoring permeability, recovery of level 0 and integration into the landscape, as they have argued from the Ministry.

To draft this project, working groups will be created between the technical services of the Ministry and each one of the town councils. These groups are intended to take into account the criteria and needs of the affected municipalities, as well as to study provisional measures to be applied once the railroad has been dismantled and while the integration project with the environment has not been carried out. Although the deadline has not been specified, the writing of this study could be extended by one year.

The union of the four mayors, their concern and insistence to achieve the dismantling of the railway infrastructure has been key to start this first commitment. The next milestone will be that these working groups proposed by the Ministry will be established as soon as possible.

Granados asks for a follow-up

For its part, the mayor of Salou, Pere Granados, said that "we have managed to start a firm commitment from the State to dismantle the train tracks when the Mediterranean corridor starts running but we are waiting to send us the planning of how and when they have to do these jobs "and clarified that" we will be waiting, we do not want to leave anything to improvisation with a question as important as this one ". The mayor also explained that he has moved the specific problem of Salou: "We have raised that our municipality have an added uneasiness for the mobility aspects and we have asked them to study the way that while carrying out the dismantling works vehicles and neighbors can continue to pass between the two parties that divides the current railroad so that, of course, we can not leave the municipality incommunicado. Subsequently, the City Council will carry out the Civic Axis project; a space that will structure the unoccupied lands creating a commercial and residential boulevard that will eventually unite the trencadís that involves the passage of the railroad through the center of the municipality.

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