The temporary union of companies (UTE) formed by Copcisa, Copisa, Ferrovial and Sacyr has been awarded the contract to carry out the bulk of the extension works on line 8 of Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC). The offer of this group of companies has been the only one that has been submitted to the public tender. Other large companies in the sector ruled out doing so, considering the bidding price too low at a time when the cost of materials was skyrocketing.
The award, worth some 300 million euros, includes the construction of a four-kilometre tunnel and three new stations (Hospital Clínic, Francesc Macià and Gràcia), as well as the reform of the halls of Plaza Espanya and Gràcia, which Currently it only serves passengers on the Vallès line. Although in the end the only joint venture submitted to the offer will carry out the entire work, at first only one of the two lots into which the work was divided had been submitted, the one with the most substance, which has been awarded for 263 million euros.
The other lot was deserted. It was limited to the works from Plaza Espanya to the TBM shaft, on Gran Via, where the tunnel will be built in a mine instead of with a TBM. Since no company aspired to it, the Generalitat has commissioned it for an additional 37 million euros from the same joint venture that will carry out the bulk of the project, as established in a clause in the tender.
The works are scheduled to begin at the end of this summer and will have an execution period of four years and ten months. If the deadlines are met, the works should be finished by 2028, although later it will still be necessary to incorporate the railway infrastructure into the tunnel and equip the stations. In the Territory department they work with the horizon of 2030.
During the first months of the contract, the tunnel boring machine will not work yet. Before that, inspections will be carried out in more than 13,500 homes, premises and garages to detect possible vibrations or cracks derived from drilling, as is usual when passing under built-up areas. At that time, a decision must also be made on the use of the Joan Miró park as a space for land extraction or another alternative that avoids the felling of 178 trees as claimed by the residents of the area.
The construction works for the extension of line 8 itself will take over from the diversion of affected services that cross the tunnel route and that have been underway for months. The allocation of the railway facilities and the architecture of the stations will remain for later. The overall bulk of one of the most important infrastructure projects in recent years exceeds 400 million euros.
