Since yesterday,
556 kilometers of motorways - the majority, in Catalan lands - raised their barriers and became free.
In principle, with them ends the Government's plan to liberalize different toll roads as the concessions expire, which have been extended for four or five decades in the hands of private companies.
The process started in 2018 and these highways will now have to be managed and maintained by the administrations.
Which is linked to the payment for use of the highways, a project that the Executive resurrected this spring with the idea of starting it up in 2024.
It would be the world upside down: roads that are free today, would become paid.
And where tolls have disappeared, there would be again, albeit in the shadows.
Moreover, the original project opened the door to extend this formula "to the rest of the roads."
HOW MANY HIGHWAYS ARE THERE?
The numbers are stubborn and, despite the fact that
1,029 kilometers of the toll network have been liberalized
in the last three years
, 60% of that network (which consists of 3,304 kilometers) continues to be paid.
Until 2026 the end of the next concession will not occur.
It is the AP-68, which connects Bilbao and Zaragoza along 294 kilometers.
In addition, there will continue to be roads with barriers for many more years in Castilla-La Mancha (AP-36);
in various sections of the AP-7 in southern Spain;
in Galicia (AP-53) or in Madrid and Segovia (AP-6 and AP-61), to give just a few examples
THE FIRST LIBERALIZATION
After 44 years since its construction,
the 84 km that go from Burgos to Armiñón (AP-1) became free in December 2018.
Since January 2020, the same has happened with the AP-4 between Seville and Cádiz (94 km) and the AP-7 between Alicante and Tarragona, 373 km.
They had been built between the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Section of the AP-2 liberalized between Tarragona and Zaragoza
They have now been joined by
the section of the AP-2 between Zaragoza and Tarragona, with 215 kilometers;
two other routes on the AP-7 (Tarragona-La Junquera and Montmeló-El Papiol) totaling 276 kilometers and two motorways directly managed by the Catalan Government: the C-32 and the C-33.
The new liberalizations total 556 kilometers, 102 for Aragon and the rest for Catalan lands.
Also because, historically, it has been the region of Spain with the most tolls.
Now, it will no longer have any kilometer of payment and state ownership.
WHAT IS THE SAVINGS?
According to the Ministry of Transport, in 2018 alone on the two liberalized AP-7 routes, more than 170,000 cars and almost 34,000 trucks were circulating every day in 2018.
That route cost a car 22.6 euros, which is
56 euros adding all the new sections.
The liberalization, says the government, will save users 752 million euros a year, including the expected increase in traffic.
The figure would rise to 1,400 million a year among all the roads that are no longer toll roads.
For its part, Fenadismer, the transport employer, estimates that
each truck driver who uses the AP-2 to reach France will stop spending up to 1,900 euros a year.
MORE CARS, SAFER
Road Safety is also improved,
thanks to the transfer of vehicles from conventional roads -where 75% of fatalities occur- to what are considered the best expressways that exist.
Regarding the negative effects, it is estimated that traffic can increase by one third, which should not pose a risk except in the sections that had already been used intensively.
AND HOW MUCH DOES 'THE PARTY' COST?
Seopan, the employers' association of the construction companies, affirms that
the measure will have an annual cost of 478 million euros,
among which is stopped entering through taxes (half of each euro that is paid in tolls) and the expenses in road maintenance.
This extra public spending, when Brussels demands to appease the deficit, is what gives wings to the project of making pay for the current free highways.
On the political board for more than a decade, the Sánchez government has proposed to move it forward now.
The reasons: to finance the maintenance of the roads, to be homologated with Europe and to comply with the EU's demands that "whoever pollutes, pays" and "whoever uses, pays."
The AP-1, between Burgos and Armiñon, was the first highway to be made free in 2018
'TOLLS' ON THE HIGHWAYS
The initiative was put on hold before the summer by the then Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos.
Faced with the rejection of users, CCAA, parties and the transport sector, he promised to carry it out only by consensus.
In addition, there
was talk of a symbolic rate of one euro cent per km.
Seopan,
who recalls that Spain has 73.5% of the European free highways network,
raised nine.
The Association of Infrastructure Conservation and Exploitation Companies
(ACEX) spoke of four.
On a trip between Madrid and Valencia that would be 3.5, 31 and 14 euros, respectively.
MAINTENANCE DEFICIT
According to ACEX, the maintenance of each km of highway has a cost of 80,000 euros and the Spanish Road Association estimated, in its latest study, that the deficit accumulated by roads in this regard amounts to 7,300 million. However, of that amount,
only
2,500 million corresponded to state-owned roads.
This network has an extension of 26,466 km, half of them high capacity roads, so that 52% of the total traffic and 64% of that of trucks pass through them.
The rest is distributed over the 139,000 kilometers that are the responsibility of the CCAA, the Provincial Councils and the Cabildos. In addition, although it is insisted that the payment for use of the highways would be a finalist tax,
the car already contributes more than 30,000 million euros in taxes.
Most of them for fuel.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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