AP7

The AP-7 has not had tolls for four years. Now the Government is studying whether to recover them or spend 500 million to expand it

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The AP-7 is once again at the center of the debate on mobility in Catalonia. And just as share El Periódico, the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility has four projects underway to widen the highway with new lanes, a joint investment that exceeds 500 million euros. The works will affect almost a hundred kilometers spread between Vallès, Penedès and Terres de l’Ebre. Why it is important. Since tolls were eliminated in 2021the AP-7 has ceased to be a highway designed primarily for long journeys and has become a road that also supports a good part of the daily traffic of the Barcelona metropolitan area, in addition to an intense passage of trucks of all kinds. This has led to almost daily traffic jams in the most densely populated sections and recurring collapses every summer. In detail. The four projects are: Third lane between L’Hospitalet de l’Infant and Ampostajust over 38 kilometers. It is the most advanced, with the drafting of the project underway since 2023. Fourth lane between the B-23 and Martorellabout nine kilometers, in one of the main accesses to Barcelona, ​​with an estimated cost of 94 million euros. Fourth lane between Sant Celoni and Montornès del Vallèsapproximately 30 kilometers. Fourth lane between Martorell and Vilafranca Centerabout 25 kilometers. These last two are, as far as possible confirm ACN and El Periódico, which until now were not publicly known. Each project is in a different phase of processing, from preliminary studies to final drafting, so none of them yet have a closed execution date. Between the lines. The problem is not just with private cars. Of the 41,000 vehicles that cross the border through La Jonquera on average every day, 15,000 are trucks, according to data of 2025 collected by El Periódico. The Ministry and the Generalitat agree that the railway should absorb a greater part of this freight traffic, but the lack of capacity of the railway network and intermodal terminals, together with a Mediterranean corridor still uncompleted, leaves the road as practically the only competitive option. Meanwhile. Expanding lanes requires years of environmental and administrative procedures, so both administrations have chosen to also act where the highway loses fluidity without the need to build anything new. An agreement of 250 million euros Annually between the Ministry and the Generalitat will allow the remodeling of fifteen links (including Girona Nord and Sud, Maçanet de la Selva, La Roca del Vallès, Montmeló-Parets, the connection with the B-30 or Vilafranca del Penedès) to eliminate the so-called “braided”, the conflictive crossings between vehicles that enter and leave in a few meters and that generate a good part of the delays. And now what. It is also still on the table limit truck overtaking in some sections, an option that the Servei Català de Trànsit is studying to reduce accidents while the works have not yet begun. In parallel, the debate has also resurfaced about whether it is appropriate to introduce a toll or a vignette on high-capacity roads, although both the central government and the Generalitat have ruled out recovering any means of payment for now. The Minister of Territory, Housing, Ecological Transition, Sílvia Paneque, already claimed a few days ago in an interview with El Periódico to advance in these expansions to prevent the same image of collapse on the AP-7 from being repeated every summer. Cover image | Costa Brava In Xataka | “The recharging excuse has its days numbered”: the Government confirms that 90% of the main roads already have fast charging nearby

In 2021, Catalonia managed to get rid of the AP-7 tolls. Five years later he has an idea: recover them

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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 In Xataka | The Basque Country will add the second toll without windows in Spain: you register or pay the fine on the AP-68

Without tolls, the AP-7 has become hell. The solution passes through speed limits of 60 km/h

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The AP-7 is known as the Mediterranean highway. It is an essential axis for Spanish traffic since it allows to circulate without interruptions between Tarragona and Alicante. And if we add their links to other roads, it allows to circulate between France and Cádiz. A road, yes, that until 2021 was marked by various tolls. Some sections, in fact, They were one of the most expensive in Spain. The road, however, is fought from the Tolls in 2021. What it was A historical claim In the area it soon became a problem. In its first year, the road saw tourism traffic increasing 40% and 80% of trucks, collected in The country. The obvious result: more jams, more accidents … and more jams accordingly. Specifically, only the first year the AP-7 concentrated 20% of the dead on the road throughout Catalonia. A figure that contrasts with the trend of the rest of the country where the deceased on the road They concentrate on secondary roads. The New free routewith France at one end and Barcelona to one of its sides, it has turned the road into a parade of merchandise vehicles. And the problem is such that since then solutions are being sought. First with a partial reduction of speed limits. An action that has arrived in 2022 and added 82 kilometers. The next step is to copy Europe. A solution to the European Since then, the AP-7 situation has not improved much. Although mortal figures have been reduced over time, only in 2024 more than 1,600 incidents on the road. The response of traffic managers has been to reduce speed. How much? It will depend on the Meteorology and traffic congestion. Because the proposal goes through a changing management of the maximum speed of the road. A solution that already applies to other roads in Europe and that can reduce the maximum allowed limit to 60 km/h. The person in charge of announcing the measure was the Minister of Interior, Núria Parlon. They point out in The newspaper that this section of variable speed will extend for 150 kilometers between Maçanet de la Selva (Girona) and the Vendrell (Tarragona). For this, panels controlled by artificial intelligence will be implemented that will limit the traffic speed based on the different circumstances that are giving. The measure takes as reference what happens, for example, In German autobahn. On these roads there is no defined speed limit. In fact, if circumstances accompany, There is no speed limit. But at nightfall, when it rains or if there are works on the road, the panels show a speed limit equal to or less than 130 km/h. The operation is exactly the same as on the German roads but the director of the Catalan Traffic Service (SCT), Ramon Lamiel, already warns in an interview with EFE: The speed can be reduced up to 60 km/h at some points. At the moment, the project is in the development phase by the Servei Català de Trànsit (SCT)who has the competitions on Catalan roads. In the second quarter of the year it should be written to be able to get it as a tender. They explain in The countrythat the intention is to deploy a progressive reduction in the maximum speed before the driver is suddenly with a bottling that forces him to reduce the speed much more drastic. Speaking to the newspaper, Lamiel insists that speed will be reduced Only in the most congested sections since they believe that the increase in accidents is derived from a greater volume of traffic and not from the danger of the road. In addition, he points out that they already proposed this measure to extend it nationwide by the roads that are the competence of the DGT but that its proposal was dismissed. The truth is that The theory says that when we circulate more slowly, traffic jams are reduced. Atasco are a sum of errors. When we circulate at a lower speed, the time to alleviate errors is greater and these are reduced. It is a matter of effectiveness and not so much speed. Traffic circulates more slowly but flows. If we circulate too fast, the braking are more abrupt, it costs more to recover a sustained speed and, little by little, we end up stucking the road. Photo | ENRIC In Wikimedia In Xataka | Catalonia has its own DGT Pegasus: Falcó is the most powerful radar in Spain and the most complicated to detect

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