The current line that links the city with Barcelona and functions like a metro will have 4.4 new kilometres. It will improve the mobility within Barcelona metropolitan area. The 400 million euro operation will also include the construction of 4 new train stations.
The budget foresees 3,134 million euros for infrastructures in Catalonia, 18.6% of the quantity for all of Spain, an amount significantly less than in 2010. One of the reasons is a reduction in public expenditure due to the economic crisis and austerity needs. 320 million have not been assigned to any concrete work and their assignation will have to be decided on in a bilateral commission.
The Spanish Parliament has formally asked the Spanish Government to decentralise the management of the Barcelona airport and have Catalan institutions deeply involved. All the groups in the Parliament, including the ruling Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), have voted in favour of the motion presented by the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Party (CiU) with the exception of the Conservative and Spanish Nationalist People’s Party (PP).
The L3 will be extended and pass by Sant Just, Esplugues, Sant Joan d’Espí and Sant Feliu. The construction could start in 2012 or 2013 and the service will not be ready until 2015 or 2016.
Barcelona and València’s Chambers of Commerce have quantified the economic net benefit that building the Mediterranean railway corridor would represent, not speaking of the political, social and cultural consequences. The Mediterranean railway, going from Gibraltar to France going along the Mediterranean shore, should be a EU priority.
A high-speed train will link Figueres, in the Girona Province, and Perpignan, the capital of the French Roussillon, crossing through the Pyrenees. However, the Figueres-Barcelona part has not yet been finished and will enter into service in 2014. Besides, France has not yet started the construction of a high-speed railway between Perpignan and Montpellier, which could take up to 10 years time.
Construction companies have agreed to receive loans for some 3,000 million euros to develop what the Catalan Government considers “strategic” infrastructures. The Catalan Minister for Public Works, Joaquim Nadal, announced this agreement this morning and listed some of these works.
The Catalan Minister for Public Works is confident about the construction along the Mediterranean shore of the passenger and freight high-speed railway connection, which will connect Catalonia and southern Spain with Europe