More than 6.3 billion to improve Rodalies until 2030

Rodalies once again has a plan, with a ten-year deadline for its realization and the Government's promise to invest some 6,346 million euros. The objective: to improve an essential service for citizens that, for a long time, has accumulated too many complaints and unexecuted investments. Reducing travel time, improving punctuality, accessibility, and the capacity and intermodality of the network are the main points to be achieved by 2030. In total, they want to add 101 trains, ten stations, and 120 kilometers of tracks, measures that would allow a 58% increase in supply to meet a 50% growth in demand. As a sign of the State's commitment, the presentation of the Pla de Rodalies de Catalunya 2020-2030 has been made at La Sagrera station, still under construction, but which is seeing slow but steady progress towards its completion with milestones such as the fact that, since last Tuesday, R1 trains already pass through its interior.

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The plan, prepared by former minister Pere Macias, contemplates immediate actions, which should be carried out before 2025, such as the reform of Plaça Catalunya station or the remodeling of Montcada Bifurcació and Castelldefels stations, which are already planned. To these are added those currently being executed, such as the works in Sants to change the configuration of the tracks and provide more capacity to the station or the new access branch to Barcelona Airport, which will lay the foundations for a new, faster connection with El Prat.

But there are more actions planned until 2025. The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda will work to make all Rodalies stations in the Barcelona area accessible: it has 80 that are already adapted for all people and 30 that are not, which will have to be reformed. Another important action will be the purchase of a hundred trains, after ten years with the same ones: 56 to renew the current rolling stock and 45 to increase the capacity of the service.

The first actions to which the Government commits amount to 4,622.39 million euros, a good part of the plan's global budget. In this sense, medium-term actions will represent 1,164 million euros, with examples such as the expansion of parking at Martorell station and the improvement of its intermodality, adding more tracks in the section between Castelldefels and El Prat, and new workshops in Mataró, Sant Celoni, Manresa, and Sant Vicenç de Calders.

A feasible plan

To ensure that all this does not remain a declaration of intent, the Ministry will create a joint commission with the Generalitat to monitor the plan. For the Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, José Luis Ábalos, the Pla de Rodalies de Catalunya 2020-2030 is feasible, taking into account that some of the works are already being executed, citing as examples the works in Sants or the advances being made in La Sagrera. In the presentation, Ábalos defended that there has been a turning point in the State's attention to Catalan infrastructures, highlighting that in the last two years it has invested a total of 1,700 million euros and tendered more than 1,400 million in Catalonia, mainly destined for Rodalies and the Mediterranean Corridor.

However, the Minister of Territory and Sustainability, Damià Calvet, reproached him for the Ministry having drawn up the plan without the participation of the Government, in addition to reminding him that it has been ten years since the last plan for Rodalies, with planned investments of more than 4,000 million euros, of which he points out that only 15% have been executed. "Years and legislatures pass and the lists of projects remain," he lamented. For her part, the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, hoped that this plan would be a real turning point and celebrated the momentum that Rodalies is having, with Sants, and that La Sagrera is having, "an urban wound" for residents that is finally beginning to close.