When one arrives or leaves the Camp de Tarragona AVE station, far away as is well known from the main cities, one always encounters the same sad image: dozens of cars parked on the shoulder of the access road to the terminal. It is nothing new, since it has been repeated for almost 18 years, when high speed arrived in Tarragona.
On the ground, scattered along the asphalt and sand ditches, remains of broken glass could be seen yesterday. Also some cars with shattered windows. The reason, a new wave of robberies. About thirty cars were attacked early Wednesday morning, according to information provided by the Diari de Tarragona.
The station has an underground, guarded parking lot, with a subscription of around fifty euros per month. It is the option chosen by many regular high-speed users, the majority to travel to Barcelona.
Another thing is what happens with occasional high-speed passengers. If you are not a subscriber, the price of the underground parking, operated by the Saba company, exceeds twenty euros if you leave the car in the morning and pick it up in the afternoon. It is almost the same as the cost of a high-speed round-trip ticket, without discounts, to Barcelona.
The result is that many casual users leave their cars on the side of the access road and make what is not normal normal.
“Vehicles parked in the dark along the access road… is a situation that no one likes, neither for image nor for safety, with the risk of people walking along the shoulder with suitcases,” he warns. indignant, Eudald Roca, mayor of La Secuita (Tarragonès), the municipal area that houses part of the station and its accesses.
Aware of the problem, the La Secuita City Council (1,800 residents) decided to launch in 2017 the project to build a large park and ride next to the station, with 650 spaces, outdoors, at about five euros a day. “We have claimed it from day one, a small City Council like ours is solving a problem of territorial scope infrastructure; We should have the complicity of all administrations, the Generalitat and even the State, to place the station in the place it deserves,” adds Roca.
Instead of help and facilities, the mayor assures that they have always felt “very alone.” “The administrative paperwork is enormous, if we were a private company we would have already gone bankrupt and abandoned the idea,” he criticizes.
Despite the obstacles, seven years later they continue with the process. A week ago, the Generalitat gave the green light to the specific modification for the urban reclassification of the land owned by the Consistory on which the parking lot has been planned. The process has not yet finished, and the mayor does not dare to talk about the calendar.
11 kilometers from Tarragona and more than 20 from Reus, most users arrive at the AVE station in their vehicle. There is no rail connection, and the only public transport, taxi aside, is the bus. The station is among fields, most of them uncultivated, but it never occurred to any administration to create or require low-cost surface parking.
