Spain has dozens of abandoned unique roads. Now he wants to save them making them “historical roads”

If we have the roads we have today, it was because 125 years ago A Scottish and a Welsh were fed up with the dusty roads In those early years of the car. We start to asphalt those paths, some of them part of the country’s spinebut over time they were abandoned when they were advanced by the highways. The Government of Spain wants to give them a second life.

Throughout geography, there are Kilometers of national roads that are in a deplorable state. He Maintenance of highways and roads More used is the one that takes the budget, while others are at your fate. Therefore, this 2025, the Government launches a program that aims to recover and enforce those roads.

And the first ‘historical road’ will be a section of the N-IV that passes through desaperros.

Spain and its new “historical roads”

At the beginning of September this year, the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility and the foundation of the Spanish Railways They signed A collaboration agreement with an objective: recovery of the historical roads of the State Road Network.

The idea is to catalog certain ways as “Historical assets linked to transport”which implies that these roads, at some point before being replaced, helped territorial expansion with population or merchandise movements.

To do this, the agreement has a budget of 300,000 euros (200,000 by the Ministry of Transportation and 100,000 covering by the Foundation of the Railways) and, during the next four years, they will have to Identify which roads are suitable to become “historical road.”

It is an action that will follow the example of the Program of ‘Green Roads’ which has managed to transform more than 3,500 kilometers of old railway paths for non -motorized use. There are numerous towns and cities that have some of these kilometers of ‘Green via‘With trees, some park, pícon areas and roads to hiking or bike.

And it is something similar to what is proposed for these historical roads with the objective of curbing the situation of deterioration and loss to which certain pathways are exposed, as well as to value their contribution to the historical infrastructure of the country. The project has the name of Ivapchete And, in addition to identifying the roads, it must hierarchize the sections according to the patrimonial value of the paths of their linked elements.

In principle, the initiative focuses on the Spanish road network, but can be expanded to study roads that are competencies of other administrations, provided they have that historical link with the state network.

Perhaps the Map of the National Special Firm Circuit of 1926 can give us a clue what other candidates would be

Apart from the initiative, There is already a pilot project: The Deseñaperros. During the coming months, the General Directorate of Roads of the Ministry will promote the elaboration of a recovery project of the Posqued of the old N-IV. It is a segment of 28.6 kilometers between Almuradiel in Ciudad Real and Santa Elena in Jaén.

It is not surprising taking into account your Historical importance being the main access between Castilla-La Mancha and Andalucía, Territorial Unity Symbol which facilitated both trade and mobility between the plateau and the peninsular south. For centuries, before being called N-IV, of course, it was an essential artery, but the opening of the most convenient A-4 highway left the N-VI in the shadow.

Now, will return to life as the first “historical road”becoming a way associated with non -motorized mobility and valueing its cultural importance.

It remains to see what the impact of the project will be and, above all, what other ways can recover in this way.

Images | Emilio J. Rodríguez Posada, Concepcion Amat orta

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