The Generalitat will rectify and widen the renovated Verges bridge over the Ter river, which was already narrow. The work, which involved an investment of around 4.1 million euros, caused unrest in this Baix Empordà municipality surrounded by fields. The agricultural machinery could not circulate without invading the opposite lane.
Seeing two tractors, two motorhomes or two collectors driving along this road at the same time, one in each direction of travel, was impossible. Impossible because the fence and the road for bicycles and pedestrians that the work incorporated had reduced the driving margins for agricultural machinery.
Most of the time it was the farmers themselves who stopped the traffic, standing at each of the two ends of the 420-meter bridge. In this way, the heavy vehicle could circulate without fear of meeting another face.
The department of Territori has announced today that it has promoted the drafting of the project to extend the bridge, located on the C-252 road over the River Ter “to facilitate the circulation of agricultural machinery in safe and normal conditions”.
The project will make it possible to widen the circulation road by 1.6 meters. With the renovation of the infrastructure, which culminated last year, not one centimeter of the width of the road was touched, which was still 3.25 meters in each direction of travel. It was the fence, of about 60 centimeters, that reduced the margins that agricultural machinery used to travel through.
The estimated investment to correct the error made in the first project will cost 2.6 million euros, which is the investment estimated by Territori in this bridge, which originally dates from 1941.
As a temporary measure, while the expansion works are not carried out, Territori will install an intelligent traffic management system, which will make it possible to differentiate the vehicles that travel on this road based on its width.
A traffic light and a vehicle detector in each direction of movement will guarantee the safe passage of all types of vehicles. This measure will prevent large vehicles from crossing the bridge at the same time. The Territory department plans to tender the work to install these smart traffic lights in the spring and the forecast is that they will be operational in the fall.
The Verges City Council regrets the “lack of planning in the project” and that the Generalitat did not take into account at first “the casuistry and the assets of the territory” before executing the renovation of the bridge. “Now the deadlines will be extended and this is a situation that could have been avoided,” the City Council said in a statement.
Verges is a municipality surrounded by an agricultural area, which also has two agricultural machinery repair shops. According to data compiled by the Consistory, throughout the year tractors 3.20 meters wide circulate on this road; from March to May and during the months of September and October, forage harvesting machines whose distance between wheels oscillates between 3.50 and 3.80 meters and from June to October, harvesters with similar widths.
The City Council collected the demands of the farmers, which it referred to the Department of Territories to correct this mobility problem. Since the denunciation of the territory, the Generalitat began to study whether it could expand the structure of the bridge, which will finally be feasible. The Consistory celebrates that Territori has worked to find solutions to the problem generated.
