The agreement reached between socialists and republicans to build the northern ring road between Sabadell and Terrassa is beginning to take shape. One year after the commitment within the framework of the approval of the budgets of the Generalitat, both parties have agreed to begin the processing of the agreement that will give rise to the drafting of the construction project of the new highway between Sabadell and Terrassa, giving continuity to the route. existing of the B-40. The start of construction is still a long way off and the fine print can become devilish. Even so, the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, assured this Friday that “the discussion is settled.”
The agreement will be one more step in compliance with the protocol signed last summer, which was in turn based on the political agreement at the beginning of the year. Now the administrative and economic processing of the agreement, valued at 200 million, begins. Once this path has been overcome, the Generalitat will have to put out to tender the drafting of the project, for which no one is yet clear about the format it will have.
While the Ministry wants it to be a high-capacity road, the Generalitat dreams of something smaller and as integrated as possible into the environment. Even if a commission is made for the works and it is the Department of Territory that bids, contracts and supervises the works, both parties must agree on the chosen formula since since it is a state-owned road, it will be the Government that must definitively approve the project. Both the mayor of Sabadell, Marta Farrés, and the mayor of Terrassa, Jordi Ballart, have made it clear that there must be a minimum of two lanes in each direction.
The B-40 agreement is the most controversial agreement, but it is not the only one that both administrations agreed to last summer. The Ministry and the Generalitat have also begun the processing of the agreement to improve the connectivity of the AP-2 and AP-7 and respond to the dangerous congestion in which it has been installed since the toll barriers were raised. This will translate into an investment of around 250 million to improve existing links and build new ones. As in the case of the B-40, it will be the Generalitat that will be in charge of carrying out the works with the financing provided by the Government. This agreement is added to the one for the transformation of the N-II in Maresme, for which the processing already began last year. Once the B-40 and the accesses to the AP-7 have been run aground, the only agreement that remains pending is that of the Pyrenean axis of the N-260.
All of these are future projects for which Minister Puente rules out setting a calendar so as not to get his fingers caught. On the other hand, the section of the B-40 between Olesa de Montserrat and Viladecavalls is very palpable, which this Friday opened to traffic after 17 years of works and an investment of 293 million euros that have been dedicated with unequal priority to over time and that they received the definitive support from Minister Raquel Sánchez.
The opening of the 6.1 kilometer section that was pending gives full meaning to the small sections that were put into service in 2010 at both ends of the recently inaugurated section and allows the north of Baix Llobregat and Vallès to be connected as they deserve. “two regions that are the industrial engine of Catalonia”, as Puente highlighted. The forecast is that about 43,000 vehicles per day will pass through this road, of which more than 20% will be of large tonnage. Its implementation will relieve traffic on the AP-7 and will allow the journey between Sabadell and the A-2 highway to be shortened by 13 kilometers and ten minutes, while improving road safety in a very significant way.
In all these years of works on the B-40, all the unforeseen events that have occurred and will have occurred have occurred: problems with the terrain, major modifications to the project, the appearance of an illegal landfill that no one had contemplated in the documents, the cessation of work. due to lack of financing and even a landslide that sank the newly built road and that if it had been open would have left fatalities. With all these elements, those responsible for the work joke that it was a perfect case study to explain to civil engineering students the great complexities and adversities of all kinds that a civil works project can face.
So many years have passed that the opening ceremony has been attended by retired professionals who once worked on the project. The mayors of the area and representatives of the economic world of the north of Baix Llobregat and Vallès were also present, as well as the leader of the PSC, Salvador Illa. On the other hand, the institutional presence of the Generalitat was conspicuous by his absence. The highest representative was the director of Barcelona’s territorial services of the Territori department, a position that many were not even aware of existed until today, accustomed to dealing with secretaries or general directors who usually attend the inaugurations of even small roundabouts. .
Despite the rudeness of the Generalitat, the Minister of Transport will return to Catalonia next Monday. His second visit in four days after more than two months without setting foot there is due to the constitution of the political commission that must pilot the transfer of Rodalies. In this case, they will meet with the councilor, Ester Capella, to agree on the creation of technical commissions and working groups that will begin to shape a transfer agreement that has until now been exclusively political.
