The largest of all the infrastructure works carried out by the Generalitat, the completion of the central part of metro L9 -which in this section will coincide with L10-, valued at 925 million euros, has been advancing at full speed since Work resumed in June 2022 after a long decade of hiatus. The tunnel boring machine has drilled 1.2 kilometers in the last year. Now it does not work since it is in maintenance. In total, he has three kilometers of tunnel left to drill. The first fortnight of August it will be put into operation again, it will cross the Via Augusta, it will pass under the Sarrià station and it will arrive in Mandri at the end of the year or the beginning of next year. Then, after passing El Putxet, it will reach the final goal, Lesseps, before the end of 2024. This is the current calendar, which, if there are no unforeseen events, those responsible for this project plan to comply.
The imminent arrival in Sarrià of the tunnel boring machine has motivated a visit this Friday by the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, to the future stop, also in the middle of the general election campaign. Accompanied by the Regional Minister for Territories, Ester Capella, he highlighted his government’s “commitment to public transport and sustainable mobility”, in which L9 is key because “it will reconnect the neighborhoods of the metropolitan area” given that work is done in the 9.2 kilometers that separate Zona Universitaria from La Sagrera, stations to which this line and the L10 arrive from El Prat and l’Hospitalet on the one hand, and from Santa Coloma and Badalona on the other. All this contrasts, in the opinion of the head of the Catalan Executive with Rodalies, which “does not work as it should”. And he has once again demanded from the Government the investments he needs and the complete transfer.
It is one thing to drill the tunnel and another to have it ready so that the trains can circulate. Although the gallery will be ready at the end of 2024, it will still be necessary to place the intermediate slab that will separate the tracks, the catenaries, the signaling – the circulation will be on two levels… Some complex tasks that extend the commissioning until 2027. It will be only with some station. In this section there are nine slopes (Campus Nord, Manuel Girona, Sarrià, Mandri, El Putxet, Lesseps, Sanllehy, Guinardó-Hospital de Sant Pau and Maragall) and three (Camp Nou, La Sagrera-TAV and Motors) in other areas as well. scheduled. They have different rates of execution –those that have not yet started– so they will be put into operation gradually until 2029.
During the visit to Sarrià it has been possible to verify the magnitude of the works. At the moment, only work is being done on the civil works of this station, whose 24-meter-diameter access shaft is dug in half of its 72-meter depth, and of Mandri, which is 90% complete. In the first, the bottom should be reached at the beginning of 2027. The first 29 meters were done with mechanical means. But the rest, made of harder rock, requires microblasting. The second stop, with softer ground, is expected to be held this year or early next year.
In Campus Nord, Manuel Girona and El Putxet the wells have not yet started. In the latter, the works will start soon. In the previous phases, those of Lesseps, Guinardó-Hospital de Sant Pau and Maragall were completed, and that of Sanllehy was left well advanced. Now there is no work in these stations. In all of them, as in the tunnel, once the civil works have been completed, the interior architecture and facilities will have to be undertaken, which in some cases still have the projects to be drafted.
