Added to the forecast of investing 384 million euros from the State budget is the award of European Next Generation funds. All of this has enabled the start of the pacification work on the N-II in the Maresme to be unraveled, a historical claim for the territory that began to materialize in 2009 with the transfer by the State to the Generalitat of ownership of the road with the intention of turning it into an urban street.
The programming of actions went on forever until, in October 2020, the Maresme Regional Council urged all the administrations involved to commit to an agreement that would allow a project to be carried out that could not be unraveled until a few days ago and which 49 million Next Generations funds contributed by the European Union are added. This additional circumstance makes it necessary to execute part of the project in three years.
As stated yesterday by the Minister of Mobility, Raquel Sánchez, the signed protocol shows the “real commitment of the Government” with the execution of the project. However, it warns that before it is necessary to comply with the previous procedures, a step prior to the concretion of the agreements, which will have a multi-year nature and in which the Generalitat must justify the investment made prior to the management tasks. A very complex administrative process that does not guarantee a calendar of actions. The minister also warned that “this is not a blank check so that the ERC government can do what it wants.”
Until the protocol between the State and the Generalitat was signed, the Pacte de Mobilitat Sostenible del Maresme project had been paralyzed for three years. The project promoted by the Department of Territories has only been publicized in a few municipalities, a fact that provoked criticism from the Regional Council and other town halls. On the other hand, municipalities such as El Masnou, Premià de Mar or Vilassar de Mar advanced their own proposals outside the Mobility Commissioner of the Regional Council.
Recently, and with the logical precipitation due to European pressure, after three years of waiting, the first firm step was announced, the protocol signed between the State and the Generalitat that will allow the progressive allocation of 384 million, plus the 49 from European funds , to fulfill the commitment agreed with the territory to pacify the N-II.
The long-awaited announcement has inevitably taken on electoral campaign overtones. On the one hand, Minister Raquel Sánchez announced yesterday in Pineda de Mar, a socialist stronghold, the protocol between the governments of Spain and Catalonia for the pacification of the N-II and the improvement of connections with the C-32. At the same time, today the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, is expected to present the mobility improvements in El Masnou, a municipality governed by ERC.
The works that will be carried out in the Maresme have their precedent in the agreement that both administrations signed in 2009 to carry out the works on the C-32 that contemplated the construction of side roads in the route of the fast track. In 2009, the State advanced 97 million of the 400 committed but, given the foreseeable elimination of tolls and the conversion of the C-32 into a free road, the project did not materialize despite being tendered. At this point a new controversy arose when the Generalitat did not justify the destination of the almost 100 million, although at the time it suggested that they were destined for social housing, which did not prevent the paralysis of the project.
With the agreement signed 14 years later, the State allocates 384 million euros. With the new financing, the Government will execute new accesses to the motorway and will pacify the N-II. The executive project highlights the reduction of lanes, the creation of a cycle path and the construction of several roundabouts at points in the Alt Maresme –from Arenys de Mar to Malgrat Mar– where the road changes from four to three or two lanes of traffic.
Actions to improve connectivity from the N-II to the highway involve building seven new access roads and expanding two others. Thus, new connections are planned in Alella and El Masnou, in Teià, in Premià, in Vilassar-Cabrils, in Llavaneres (where there is only one access in the direction of Barcelona), in Arenys de Mar (already tendered as the Valldegata project ), between Canet de Mar and Sant Pol de Mar, on the southern access from Calella and a better southern access from Pineda de Mar.
An indicative estimate of investment costs prepared three years ago estimated that the total of the Maresme Sustainable Mobility Pact amounted to 430.7 million, of which 239.9 were associated with the Generalitat and 190.8 with other administrations .
In the same way, the document also incorporates the possibility of creating new accesses to the motorway in Caldes d’Estrac and Vilassar de Mar at the height of the Mercat de la Flor to divert truck traffic towards the motorway.
Along the same lines, the draft drawn up in 2020 proposes improvements in public transport, establishing bus stop spaces on the N-II, transport mode interchanges and park areas.
The pacification of the N-II between Montgat and Cabrera de Mar is the most defined section in the project. It contemplates reducing the circulation lanes to two and widening the sidewalks on the mountain side to 7.80 meters. In parallel, a 2.5-meter-wide two-way bike lane will be built. A 1.20 meter space, which could be designed with gardens, will separate the two seven meter wide traffic lanes, and a 0.80 meter service step will be left next to the railway. The road, at the points closest to the railway stations, will have a single platform. All this with the sole exception of Mataró, which in its day already negotiated on its own the transfer of the N-II as one more street in the capital of Maresme.
Since the release of tolls, the C-32 has assumed between 73% and 83% of the traffic through the Baix Maresme. In the Alt Maresme, between 39% and 57% of the vehicles use the fast lane. In the section of N-II between Montgat and Mataró between 16,000 and 28,000 vehicles circulate, with an average of 20,000 on weekends.
The protocol that the state and regional administrations are now announcing, at the discretion of the vice president of the Regional Council and president of the Mobility Commissioner, Joaquim Arnó, “does not contribute anything new other than a redefinition of the obligations to adapt to the new reality of the 2020 pact agreed upon by political forces and social entities”.
