an unfinished highway that isolates half the region

The A-43 highway, which should connect Ciudad Real with Extremadura, has been stumbling for almost 30 years. Just like counted The Ciudad Real Tribune, the project first appeared in the General State Budgets in 1997, but has not yet materialized.

The connection between Ciudad Real and Extremadura is still in an administrative stage, and it has not really been decided which route it will take to the final point. Very curiously, and as the media reminds us, the Romans solved this same dilemma two thousand years ago: by passing through the south.

Why it is important. The N-430, which currently connects both regions, is the only unturned national highway in the entire corridor that crosses the peninsula from east to west. Just as it they remembered In El Periódico de Extremadura, it is “a road with great intensity of traffic, volume of goods and accidents with fatalities.” In June 2025, more than 1,500 people demonstrated in Santa Amalia under the slogan “No more deaths on our road.”

In detail. The Ministry of Transport approved last October the public information file for the first Extremaduran section of the A-43, between Torrefresneda and Santa Amalia. There are 11 kilometers with a budget of 78.31 million euros. The new route will start at the junction with the A-5 and will connect with the N-430 east of Santa Amalia, including three junctions, seven overpasses and three viaducts.

However, this section is just a fraction of what is expected, since the final objective is to connect Extremadura with the Valencian Community. Furthermore, the decision on which direction to take from Ciudad Real to Extremadura has not yet been definitively made. The Government has been debating for years about whether to follow the N-430 north of Ciudad Real or go through Puertollano to the south. It has also been considered not to build a highway and to carry out maintenance works for this national highway and adapt it.

The lesson of the romans. The project Itiner-eled by researchers from Spain and Denmark, has mapped 300,000 kilometers of Roman roads throughout the empire. In Ciudad Real, according to publish La Tribuna, the Roman roads anticipated the layout of current highways such as the A-4, the A-43 between Manzanares and Tomelloso, or the N-420.

To connect with Extremadura, Rome chose the southern option. Just like they count From La Tribuna, the old road left towards Poblete, as the A-41 does today, passing through Caracuel de Calatrava, Villamayor, the mining city of Sisapo and continuing to Almadén before reaching Mérida. Two millennia ago the northern option was ruled out due to the difficulty of the terrain.

And now what. While the Romans have laid out paths that have lasted for centuries, in Spain we still have doubts about how to tackle the problem of the A-43, a project that has been in vain for almost 30 years. The approved section between Torrefresneda and Santa Amalia is progress, but insufficient to solve the isolation of the region. It remains to define the route in Ciudad Real, budget the remaining kilometers and carry out the works.

Cover image | Wikimedia Commons and Google Maps

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