Spain has a maxim that is repeated when we talk about roads: things go slowly. Pretty slowly, in fact. You just have to see that the A-11, one of the great Castilian-Leonese highways has been in operation since 1995. Or the almost 30 years since the A-60 has been planned without having been completed. Andalusia is not spared either, with roads that They are beginning to approach two decades before finishing.
And a halfway case is that of the A-22 between Huesca and Lleida. Barely 110 kilometers separate these two cities in northeastern Spain and, however, it has taken more than a quarter of a century for a highway to be completed between them.
The culmination for the luck of the Aragonese and Catalans took place last October. That month, the section between Huesca-Siétamo was finally inaugurated. Just 12.6 kilometers for which seven years of work have been needed but which should have been resolved in 2021. Perhaps that is why the celebration was bitter.
25 years for an hour’s drive
They counted on Aragon Digital that the completion of the highway between Huesca and Lleida only had Minister Óscar Puente as a political representative. None of the Aragonese officials made an appearance (autonomous community, provincial council or city council).
And it is that the last bypass next to the city (it connected with the A-22 but also gave an exit to the N-240 known as Ronda Norte de Huesca) has been full of controversy. With it, the last of the 11 sections into which the construction of the A-22 has been divided has been completed. Those 12.6 kilometers mentioned above began operating in 2018 and the forecast is that they will be ready in 2021. The investment was 61.5 million euros but citizens have had to wait another four years before being able to enjoy the entire road.
The Ministry of Transport explained With the inauguration, eight of the kilometers of the new link have been newly built, leaving the old national N-240 as a service road. In addition to the connection with this road that acts as a ring road, it has also joined the A-23. A road, the latter, that will finally be linked to the A-21 since the tender has been awarded to resolve the link between both roads and resolve the bottleneck that was generated in Jaca.
But returning to the case of the A-22, the issue is that the highway was designed in the Transportation Infrastructure Plan 2000-2007. However, in 2004 no relevant step had yet been taken in the construction of the new highway and the work became part of the state promises again in 2005 with the Strategic Infrastructure and Transportation Plan. By then, the intention is for the highway to be fully operational in 2012.
The A-22 was one of those infrastructures that was affected by the 2008 crisis. However, despite the adjustments in 2010, the times and investments were not extended excessively. And before that year, the highway had less than 30 kilometers in operation but little by little the sections were advancing and the vast majority of the work was ready between 2010 and 2012.
It was, therefore, the section between Huesca and Siétamo that has lengthened the completion of the road. In Herald They covered the news of the awarding of this last section in 2018 but already pointed out at that time that a situation that had been completely stopped for five years before was being unblocked. The promise, as we said, is that it would be ready in 2021.
Thus, the A-22 highway has accumulated years and years of delay despite being practically finished. The little more than 10 kilometers that were necessary to close the work have taken 12 years to carry out, the same as it took to have the remaining hundred kilometers ready. Now, at least, Aragonese and Catalans can breathe a sigh of relief and finally have a fully modern road to connect Huesca with Lleida.
Photos | Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility
In Xataka | Spanish roads have a problem in 2026: repairing a kilometer of asphalt is more expensive than ever
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings