Adif plans to build a tunnel along Diagonal that could link the Zona Universitaria with 22@

The central tunnel of Metro Line 9 and the tunnel that Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC) will build between Plaça Espanya and Gràcia station to link the Baix Llobregat and Vallés lines and provide railway coverage to emblematic places such as Plaça Francesc Macià might not be the only ones to be drilled in the subsoil of the Catalan capital in the coming years. The State, through the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, also plans to build a new tunnel, in this case under Avenida Diagonal, to help decongest the Rodalies network.

This was announced this Thursday by the coordinator of the Rodalies Plan, Pere Macias, in an interview on betevé reported by the ACN agency. According to Macias, the public company Adif has already started the procedures to connect the University Zone of Barcelona with Castelldefels, an action included in the Rodalies Plan 2020-2030 under the name "new Barcelona-Cornellà de Llobregat-Castelldefels line". This route would also pass through the municipalities of Viladecans and Gavà, currently covered by line R2, but through stations "located very eccentrically with respect to the population center". It would also provide coverage to Sant Boi de Llobregat, which currently does not have a Rodalies station.

As Macias has advanced, the project, ten years away, includes the possibility of extending the route with a tunnel along the Diagonal that would allow serving two areas of the city without railway service: the University Zone and the 22@ technology district, in Poblenou. "Building tunnels is no mystery, there is technology and, if there is money, these types of tunnels are possible, feasible and are done all over the world," Macias explained to the Barcelona public media.

For now, two companies (Prointec and Intecsa) have been awarded the drafting of a study of the line's route with a two-year term and a budget of 1.3 million euros. Currently, Adif's current network in Barcelona has two tunnels that serve the different Rodalies lines and another for the AVE. According to the Rodalies Plan, the new Barcelona-Castelldefels line "aims to satisfy the increase in demand for public rail transport between the municipalities of the southern Barcelona coast and the metropolitan core."

"The introduction of a new entry route to the city of Barcelona will allow for the improvement of Rodalies railway services without increasing traffic on the two currently existing corridors, which already have a very significant intensity of circulations," the document states. With this fourth tunnel, it would not be necessary for all commuter lines to pass through Sants. In 2010, the Castelldefels-Barcelona line was already subjected to public information, but it did not prosper, but according to Macias now "circumstances have changed."