On October 6, 1998, 16 city councils, four regional councils, the two municipal associations of Catalonia, three chambers of commerce and other entities from different fields formed a common front to reduce and rationalize tolls, with the ultimate objective of bringing the situation in Catalonia – with many payment methods – into line with that of the rest of Spain (…). In a 10-point manifesto called the Gelida Declaration, the signatories constituted an anti-toll front and opposed the latest agreement then approved by the Spanish Ministry of Development, the Generalitat and the concessionaire Acesa, which saw exploitation concessions extended until 2021. In exchange, the concessionaire lowered the amount of the tolls.
This is how he headed The Newspaper your article AP-7: history of a business and a claim in 2019. It reviewed the, at that time, 20 years that various city councils and associations had been demanding that the AP-7 lift its barriers. And drivers had been paying for the use of that highway since its opening in sections between the 70s and the first half of the 80s.
The situation became even more tense when, as we read above, the concession was extended to 2021. It was then that the images of drivers who They refused to pay when passing through the AP-7.
In 2021 things changed. The concession ended, it was not extended and the barriers were raised. From that moment on, cars no longer stopped at toll booths. But that had its consequences. Consequences that, once again, bring the shadow of the toll.
Too much traffic
And the fact that the highway was free brought with it an immediate increase in the volume of cars that traveled on it. Only in its first year free of tolls, the volume of cars grew by 40% and that of trucks by 80%, they pointed out in The Country.
With Barcelona as one of the key steps in the entry and exit of vehicles and the passage through the French border, the road has been taken over by trucks. Traffic is now slower and more dangerous. In fact, that first year the highway concentrated 20% of accidents registered throughout the autonomous community.
Since then, organizations have been looking for solutions. The last to leave his proposal was Manel Nadal, Secretary of Mobility and Infrastructure, in Chain Being where he has assured that if public entities agree, they could have tolls on this road again “in two or three years.”
In his statement, Nadal even points out that not only the AP-7 would once again put barriers in the way of drivers. The proposal is to apply it to the rest of the high-capacity roads to diversify traffic and prevent a funnel effect from occurring as has happened with the free use of this road, which has now become the favorite route for transport companies that have a free passage to France.
In the middle they rescue the words of Salvador Illa, president of Catalonia, who has already pointed out that “perhaps we were wrong when we all asked for them to disappear.” They rule out, according to Nadal, a possible Swiss-style Eurovignette (the driver pays a flat rate per year to drive on toll roads) because they assure that Europe would not accept it after 2032.
And Europe has been putting pressure on Spain for a long time to turn your free roads into toll roads. For now, Governments have turned a deaf ear because the cost of implementing the measure is very high but we have been there for more than a decade with this possibility floating over our roads.
Meanwhile, the authorities in charge of traffic control seem to be doing the best they can. In some sections speed limits have been drastically reduced and in the Servei Català de Trànsit (SCT) They have been working for some time to implement dynamic speed limits that reduce or increase speed depending on the volume of cars and trucks passing by at any given time.
Photo | Pere Lopez Brosa and Wikimedia
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