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[E] Spain | road infrastructure • autopistas y autovías

3M views 12K replies 451 participants last post by  alserrod 
#1 ·
I just happened to stumple across it while looking at google earth, and the network they have there is pretty breath-taking, especially by European standards. A few ring roads, tollways, C+D setups, and more freeway to freeway interchanges than I can count, compared to our 2 here in Sydney :( Not to mention plenty of lanes on each.

Anyway, does someone have some context or explaination of what's driving this huge boom in freeways? Wikipedia doesn't have a single thing to say about Madrid's roads, believe it or not, and I can't find much else on the net, so any comments from locals or people in the know, you're welcome.



I mean, jesus christ, just south-east of the city they have 9 full on interchanges covering an area that appears to be practically empty, if i'm missing something I would love to know.

Edit: Oh, nice forums here by the way, glad I found 'em.
 
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#7,482 ·
Despite it is a non-populated area and the second smallest province capital (40.000ish people out of a province of 95.000 people), there are six +1+1 roads that joins there.

They are:

Sagunto-Burgos. You have A-23 from Sagunto (Mediterranean) to near Daroca. It is not expected to have more. In last decade I have read only about a 4-5 km overpass for two villages that would be enough. IMHO, maybe they could make something in the 10-10-15 km nearest to Soria direction west, and some other small bypasses but nothing else

Medinaceli-Logroño. A-15 from Medinaceli to Soria already opened and not expected more. This road remains good in the Soria province and it is inside a valley to reach Ebro valley in La Rioja. They should have to think to improve there but nothing special

Zaragoza-Portugal by Zamora. It is expected to have western side as part of A-11 and eastern side as continuing A-15 through AP-15/AP-68 junction.
First one will make part of an axis Barcelona-Porto in the shortest line.
Second one will make Madrid Pamplona shorter and faster (and will improve Barcelona-Porto a little)

A-11 is under projects but recently have read only something in the nearbies of Valladolid, nothing else.
A-15... it is a long time I do not read anything


Those +1+1 are because

- southwestern side has a branch with another road to reach northern side of mountains not far from Madrid, later Segovia and so on. Nothing expected there
- northeastern side has a branch to go to Pamplona faster, without a detour. With A-15, will no need to improve it at all


(and obviously the province has another "road": A-2 Madrid-Zaragoza-Barcelona-France in one corner of the province. Junction A-15/A-2 is inside this province)
 
#7,484 ·
#7,485 ·
^^ Although the press and the politicians call it "autovía", technically it is not an autovía, but a dual carriageway with roundabouts, as arctic_carlos points out.

I'm just saying this to let people know, so that it's not included in either the List of new motorway or expressway sections or the Motorway openings around the world threads.
 
#7,488 ·
#7,489 ·
Idea is not bad providing they improve public transport in all directions. This is, easy points to park the car near a commuter station. Free transfer from commuter to underground (not paying two tickets) and so on...

I know people who has commuter line house-work, just only 5-10 minutes on foot to/from stations and says it is better for them to use the car because it is faster. They have to change train as said. I replied... agree but second trains runs every three minutes in rush hours!!!!!!

Sometimes a car bottleneck and easy for bus makes using more public transport but IMHO something more should change.
 
#7,490 ·
This sounds like a stupid idea: De la Serna presenta el proyecto para adaptar el carril izquierdo de la A-2 como carril Bus-VAO

They want to change the left lane on A-2 towards Madrid to a Bus/HOV lane in 2018.

A-2 has only three lanes in each direction with traffic volumes between 100,000 and 130,000 vehicles per day. Traffic congestion would worsen significantly if there would be only 2 lanes during rush hour.
At least there would still be six lanes on off-peak hours. The press release says this will be a dynamic lane which will only be operational in rush hour.

It also seems a bad idea to me though. There's no way that 1/3 of A-2 traffic can be HOV and buses. In Barcelona there's an HOV lane and it carries 10.000 vehicles per day, when there are 150k on the general purpose lanes.
 
#7,491 ·
N-621 Puerto de San Glorio

Puerto de San Glorio is a 1609 meter high mountain pass of N-621 in Northern Spain, on the border of Cantabria and Castilla y León. It is located in the Picos de Europa range.


N-621 Puerto de San Glorio-1 by European Roads, on Flickr


N-621 Puerto de San Glorio-2 by European Roads, on Flickr


N-621 Puerto de San Glorio-3 by European Roads, on Flickr

There is a side road which leads to a viewpoint over Picos de Europa

N-621 Puerto de San Glorio-4 by European Roads, on Flickr


N-621 Puerto de San Glorio-5 by European Roads, on Flickr


N-621 Puerto de San Glorio-6 by European Roads, on Flickr
 
#7,493 ·
In the first picture you can see a non paved path but good for cars. Driving 2,5 km you will reach another aerial mountainscape, quite cool, and seeing, at the same time, the valley you have driven inside Cantabria and another one to Fuente Dé.

Hope you enjoyed that area. Know strongly well
 
#7,495 ·
#7,496 ·
This weekend I went to Navarre and drove NA-718 across the Urbasa ridge and into the lower Amescoa valley. I consider any NA-xxx other than NA-1xx to be "green", like this one, as Navarre hasn't had any "green" roads since a few years ago (They sign all NA-xxx in orange and NA-xxxx in yellow, with nothing green in between which puzzles me, same happens in the Valencian community).

I've also identified a whole corridor made up by many good secondary roads (mostly orange, with some green and even yellow roads) which I used on the way back. It stretches from Vitoria to Fraga and comprises the following roads: Alava's A-132, NA-132-A, NA-132-B, (bypasses Estella/Lizarra on A-12), NA-132, (section down N-121), NA-5330, NA-1240 (though this can be skipped by crossing Aragon river on a narrow bridge along NA-5330), NA-128, A-1201, A-127, A-125, A-124, A-1209, (up A-23 to Almudevar), A-1210 (Google Maps hasn't updated the section to Tardienta and still shows A-1211), A-1213 (again, Google Maps isn't updated and still shows A-1210), A-129 and A-131.
 
#7,498 ·
Is there any snow left in June at Picos de Europa?
It really depends on the year, but generally it's not uncommon that the snow remains in some places during the whole year. 2017 has been quite hot and dry, so probably the snow melted down before July. A snowfall came down in early August though: http://www.huffingtonpost.es/2017/0...en-pleno-agosto-que-triunfa-en-in_a_23073337/

The Picos de Europa massif is one of the places in Spain that gets the most snow. Sometimes the neveros (snowfields?) can remain the whole year as far south as the Sierra Nevada, or even in the ~ 2,000 - 2,500 m high Sierras of Béjar or Gredos in Central Spain: https://foro.tiempo.com/seguimiento...ada-2016-t147377.0.html;msg3467899#msg3467899
 
#7,499 ·
It really depends on the year, but generally it's not uncommon that the snow remains in some places during the whole year. 2017 has been quite hot and dry, so probably the snow melted down before July. A snowfall came down in early August though: http://www.huffingtonpost.es/2017/0...en-pleno-agosto-que-triunfa-en-in_a_23073337/

The Picos de Europa massif is one of the places in Spain that gets the most snow. Sometimes the neveros (snowfields?) can remain the whole year as far south as the Sierra Nevada, or even in the ~ 2,000 - 2,500 m high Sierras of Béjar or Gredos in Central Spain: https://foro.tiempo.com/seguimiento...ada-2016-t147377.0.html;msg3467899#msg3467899
In June of 2016, there was snow in the peaks and in the shadow areas of the mesa . I have to abort my route going from Fuente De airlift to Cabaña Veronica hut due to that.
 
#7,500 ·
And just a few days after the final section of A-22 was tendered, and a couple days after I passed through the area, Fomento has tendered the A-21 gap near the Yesa reservoir (the Tiermas-Sigües section). If it was managed by nearby Navarre it would probably have been built eons ago...
 
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