Cities like Madrid, Barcelona or Zaragoza have a through railway tunnel. Infrastructure that allows the circulation of short and long distance trains without occupying urban land, which reduces travel time, speeds up mobility in cities and drastically reduces pollution. Valencia, which is located at the equator of the north/south circulation of the Mediterranean corridor, does not have it.

All long-distance trains must completely bypass the city, which is divided into lollipop shapes because the train tracks have not yet been buried. Rail traffic arriving from the north or west must enter the center of the capital from the south at two stations, Joaquín Sorolla, for long-distance routes, and the historic Estación del Norte: both function as a “cul de sac”.

The request for a through tunnel is historic. Because trains arriving from the south to the north and vice versa must stop at one of these two stations and begin their journey again. A huge waste of time. However, while the Government approved this possibility in large capitals, Valencia has always been left on the sidelines.

The problem is that with the construction of the Mediterranean corridor, which connects Europe with the south of Spain through the coast, this through tunnel is an emergency. Europe sees it as a “plug” in its reports on the trans-European corridors, and employers and civil society are beginning to be concerned. Without this work, the Mediterranean corridor has no meaning.

In October 2021, the Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez, presented the informative study of the railway axis that will cross the city underground and the new international gauge double platform between Castellón and València, both actions linked to the Mediterranean corridor. More than two years have passed and, at the moment, there is no news about the through tunnel, which should have already received the Environment qualification for the document that contemplates three alternatives with important differences in cost and that range between 1,440 million euros, the most economical and the 2,265 million the most expensive.

Own sources explain that there were many allegations from different municipalities regarding the project that are now placed on the table of the new minister Óscar Puente, from whom no little diligence is expected to publish the award of the works.

The through tunnel project is part of a triad of infrastructures that will change, and in what way, the railway arterial reorganization of Valencia. On the one hand, there is the access channel, whose works are progressing at a good pace, according to sources familiar with the project, enough to meet the objective of reaching 2028. Two years later, in 2023, the through tunnel and the double platform should be ready. València-Castellón, presented that October 2021 and for which there is still no progress. The three executions will change the appearance of the city and metropolitan mobility.

The problem is that during this time important works have been approved. Last week, the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility announced the awarding of the works for the new through station for high-speed trains under the Atocha terminal. The contract for the drafting of the “functional study of the remodeling of the arterial railway network of Zaragoza and its adaptation to the circulations of the Zaragoza-Canfranc-Pau line” has also been approved. This contract says that “in particular, special attention will be paid to the urban railway section of Zaragoza that runs in a tunnel, as it is one of the sections with the highest traffic of the Spanish railway network and with the greatest potential for growth.”

Last November, the Valencian Business Association, AVE, held an event in Madrid to audit the execution of the Mediterranean corridor works. On that occasion they already expressed their concern about the lack of news about the through tunnel. Without a through tunnel, the Valencia “funnel” becomes the great problem of the Mediterranean corridor. Even more so because we must add the fact that all circulations from Valencia to the north share the same double-track platform with intense commuter, regional, long-distance and freight traffic.