Parla

Parla has 134,833 inhabitants, 24.43 km² in area and one goal: to become the nerve center of high speed in the south of Madrid. The idea was presented yesterday by Óscar Puente, Minister of Transport, and is part of the profound renovation that the Government wants to carry out on the high-speed line between Madrid and Barcelona. The plans. Announced yesterday by Puente: a Madrid-Barcelona in less than two hours. That is the goal and the big headline. At the moment what we know is that two feasibility studies have been requested. They will study the possibility of introducing improvements in the infrastructure so that trains can reach 350 km/h top speed and both cities can join in less than 120 minutes. The investment should be reflected in “more services, less time, more users, more territorial structure and flexibility of exploitation, according to Puente’s own words. For this, the construction of two new stations will be key, which will also be the key to introducing two new variants at the entrance to both cities. Parla. It would become the reference for the municipalities in the south of Madrid. And the construction of a large caliber station in the southern zone would not only impact the more than 130,000 residents of the municipality. The key is in everything that is nearby: Getafe, Leganés, Fuenlabrada or Pinto. Alcorcón and Móstoles are further away but there are connections with Cercanías. From Transport they say that Parla has “an area of ​​influence of more than 1.26 million inhabitants and in which, within a range of 15 minutes, 4.7 million people would have access and in less than 1 hour, about 6 million potential users.” In these moments, and if no delays or breakdowns occurthe connection between the Parla and Atocha Cercanías stations is covered in 29 minutes. And it takes 33 minutes to get to Sol station, in the heart of Madrid. Decongest. It is the last objective of the new station. If built, the idea is to offer an alternative to intern services. That is, those who travel from Barcelona to Seville directly. These trains would need less time to travel the distance since they would travel fewer kilometers and could travel faster as they would not have to deal with speed reductions at the entrance to the city and passing through Atocha. Besides, Puente pointed out in his speech that with this new station the station can be used as an intermediate stop on the Madrid-Seville and Madrid-Levante services (its neighbors would not have to go to the center of the capital to return back having boarded the high-speed train) and it can serve as an alternative station in case of incidents. Right now, Transport assures, 250 trains circulate through Madrid or its surroundings. With this variant an alternative would be created to the high-speed route already existing between Madrid and Andalusia or Levante. In addition, it would improve the service for the increase in traffic expected with the improvements in the Extremadura corridor. Parla, you are not alone. Parla’s action, as we said, is not the only one that Transport plans to reduce the time between Madrid and Barcelona. With the same arguments, the idea is to create a new station near Barcelonaspecifically in El Prat de Llobregat. The idea is that this new station would allow the Madrid-Barcelona-French border high-speed train to connect with the Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat airport. Regional trains would also stop at this station through the corresponding adaptation of the lines. The other action in Catalonia involves linking the Lleida-Pirineus station with Barcelona with a new line that would enter the city through La Sagrera, north of Barcelona. In this way, trains would not necessarily have to pass through Camp de Tarragona, freeing up part of the traffic that already circulates there and, therefore, offering a new variant to Barcelona very similar to that of Parla in Madrid. Many trains, little investment. Although the study of these actions has raised some controversy when it is understood that other Spanish roads still need significant improvement to lighten travel times, the truth is that investment in Adif’s infrastructure has been requested for a long time. It must be taken into account that both alternatives in large cities, and especially south of Madrid, represent a good escape route to decentralize the network. The arrival of Ouigo and Iryo has exponentially increased the number of trains on the tracks but they face the problem of Adif has not invested enough money to absorb traffic. own Puente assured last August that “6 trains circulated per day on the Madrid-Seville line, in each direction. Today, 289 trains circulated at the Torrejón de Velasco point on the Madrid-Seville high-speed line (…) When there is an incident you have 25 trains in both directions within a radius of one hour.” Photo | Smiley.toerist and Google Maps In Xataka | A Spain literally at two speeds: while the Madrid-Barcelona AVE goes at 350 km/h, the rest of the network languishes