[E] Spanish Autopistas and Autovías

[torke]

Originally Posted by Chris1491

I heard, that there are plans for a M70?

M-60, not M-70 by moment.
Length: 170 Km.
Estimated budget: €1.5 billion ($1.92 billion).

[picassoborseli]

Originally Posted by Chris1491

Madrid has huge suburbs, some of them have over 200.000 inhabitants, and are growing fast. Most motorways (autopistas, autovias) are very wide, here in NL, we can only dream of such a width for motorways.

A map i made. I made a much larger map, but i can't find it this time.

No none of the suburbs pass the 200.000 inhabitants, maybe Móstoles, but I thought they had about 198.000 inhabitants if i'm not wrong.

other cities above 150.000 inhabitants are:
- Alacalá de Henares
- Alcorcón
- Getafe
- Leganés
- Fuenlabrada

[torke]

I have not heard anything about a M-70 but is going to be an A-40, this freeway will be completely outside of Madrid (this is why is not M-) but it will be too a kind of ring, it will link the interestate freeways A-1 (at Venturada), A-2 (at Guadalajara), A-3 (at Tarancon), A-4 (at Aranjuez), A-42 (at Toledo), A-5 (at Maqueda) and A-50/AP-21(at Avila).
Perhaps this map can help a bit to figure it (maybe someone can help me posting something better about this):
The blue line is (more or less) where the freeway is planned

[torke]

Official population of Madrid Metropolitan Area Cities in 2005 (www.ine.es):
Madrid - 3.155.359
Móstoles - 204.463
Alcalá de Henares - 197.804
Fuenlabrada - 195.131
Leganés - 181.248
Alcorcón - 162.524
Getafe - 158.363
Torrejón de Ardoz - 109.483
Alcobendas - 103.149
Parla - 91.024
Coslada - 82.894
Pozuelo de Alarcón - 78.083
Las Rozas de Madrid - 71.937
San Sebastián de los Reyes - 65.767
Majadahonda - 61.788
Collado Villalba - 52.445
Rivas-Vaciamadrid - 49.696
Valdemoro - 44.136
Aranjuez - 43.926
Arganda del Rey - 41.411
San Fernando de Henares - 39.966
Colmenar Viejo - 39.579
Tres Cantos - 39.198
Pinto - 37.559
Boadilla del Monte - 35.588
Galapagar - 29.218
...

[ChrisZwolle]

Móstoles 216.463 (INE 2006)
Alcalá de Henares 204.000
Leganés 187.076

es.wikipedia.org

[torke]

Originally Posted by Chris1491

Móstoles 216.463 (INE 2006)
Alcalá de Henares 204.000
Leganés 187.076

es.wikipedia.org

Sorry, perharps you are right, but there are no data for 2006 yet, (the last official data is from 1st of January of 2005), you will have it once the year finishes. So legally your Mostoles population is wrong, dont know about wikipedia data, but I trust official sites better: http://www.ine.es/inebase/cgi/um?M=%...=inebase&N=&L= or www.ine.es

[Crocodine]

(Sorry about not to write down this in english) Torke, Alcalá de Henares tiene más de 200.000 habitantes según el padrón de 2006. Te lo dice un alcalaíno, pero puedes seguir creyendo a los anticuados (y oficialísimos, sí, todo lo que tú quieras) datos del INE.

@ Chris1491: Alcalá's number is closely right, as taken from City Council's data by me. I will also say that Alcalá has plans to expand further, until reaching 300.000 inhabitants toll in less than 6 years.

@ Picassoborseli: Yes, you're totally wrong.

[Effer]

WOW!

[The traveler]

Originally Posted by nick_-_taylor

Yeah but Madrid and other areas still benefit from indirect EU funding. The reason is, that poorer areas of Spain are supported with grants from the EU, and traditionally this money would have come from the wealthier regions like Madrid and Barcelona. The ability of not having to help the poorer regions as much means that Madrid and other European cities and countries which lag behind and are beneficiaries from the EU are able to then re-direct to money on local projects. The Madrid Metro for instance would unlikely to be expanding as quickly as it is, if Madrid had to continue to support the poorer regions of Spain without EU aid.

So what? What is your point? As far as I know those grants from EU are for helping new coming members reach higher income levels and to develop country's infrastructure. In fact, Spain is a very good example of this theory. By using EU grants Spanish Economy is one of the best performances in Western Europe and now would be a pivotal country in that area. What is wrong about those things? I don't see the all picture about this discussion of EU funding and Madrid infrastructure. On the other hand, we have many Western European countries which their performance is at least ridicule. That's maybe the problem.

[Bikkel]

UK regions receive grants as well. In NL it's Flevoland that is on the receiving end. It's a nonsensical reply from N_T.

The changes in Madrid (and Spain) remain impressive.

[Maxx☢Power]

"Mommy, why is Spain getting more money than me? I want to build motorways and high-speed trains too! "

"Oh, but you already have motorways, what about those?"

"But they're old and they don't have that sexy, new black asphalt, viaducts and shiny markings that Spain's have!"

Bunch of cry babies. This lack of solidarity, nationalistic tendencies and narrowmindedness has no place in 21st century Europe. Does it ever occur to those who complain that levelling things out will greatly benefit everyone, including the country they themselves live in and are so fond of?

Not referring to anyone in particular, just a general pattern of behaviour I have noticed.

[LtBk]

I think Madrid's motorway network would be more suitable for mega cities like Sao Paulo and Karachi.

[DonQui]

Originally Posted by LtBk

I think Madrid's motorway network would be more suitable for mega cities like Sao Paulo and Karachi.

Are Sao Paulo and Karachi in the center's of their respective country and hence the source and destination of most trips in the country?



This is not only for 6 million people of the region of Madrid. These roads get used by many other Spaniards when traversing the country, all 45 million of them. This was afterall why the city was selected and constructed as the capital, as you can get to any part of the realm within 500-700 km.

[LtBk]

Originally Posted by DonQui

Are Sao Paulo and Karachi in the center's of their respective country and hence the source and destination of most trips in the country?



This is not only for 6 million people of the region of Madrid. These roads get used by many other Spaniards when traversing the country, all 45 million of them. This was afterall why the city was selected and constructed as the capital, as you can get to any part of the realm within 500-700 km.

No, but those cities are the biggest financial and industrial centers in their native countries, so it might help them.

[DonQui]

Originally Posted by LtBk

No, but those cities are the biggest financial and industrial centers in their native countries, so it might help them.

Well, this is part of the reason why those cities do not have such a large network.

EVERY major national high trunk in Spain, there are six of them, converges onto Madrid. Obviously there are routes that do not do so, but they do not carry as much traffic as these radial routes.

[frozen]

All about funds it's a little bit tricky. Yes, we receive a great quantity of funds from UE but dont forget that our enrichment make to other UE take profit of our situation. I mean, if we are richer, we are able to buy more products to other european firms and we are "backing" this money indirectly. For exemple, Siemens (a german firm) sold us all the high-speed trains so we "back" a part of the money recieved buying this product.
Of course, Europe pay us a part of High speed train and without european funds we couldnt, thats true.And that why i say thank you, but i dont like when people just say "They pay absolutly all" because you are hidden why they do it. Dont forget that EU is in fact an economic union.
¿Do you think europe throw its money away? Not sure about it... Definetly, our enrichment it's good for the rest of european contries (we are a new trade)

Sorry for my english

[swallowave]

nice city, but not so big . i just compare the airport runway's length to measure the downtown size, via the satellite map.

[picassoborseli]

@ swallowave:
The bigest runway on the Airport is around 4800 meters! the others almost 4000 meters

[nick_-_taylor]

Originally Posted by torke

I dont know what you exactly mean when you are talking about poor regions in Spain because just 3 places now a days are supported by the EU (Galicia, Extremadura and Andalucia) and the poorest one region is Extremadura which is still rich, I mean, is the poorest yes, but not poor (in straight meaning). Greece, Portugal, Malta, Poland... are more poor for example, and yes, they 3 get some extra money (just for one more year by the way) to improve its development because their gip is under the EU media. So dont think that Madrid would grow less if these other 3 regions do not get money from EU because these Spanish places do not need as help as the others could not grow. Of course Europe has helped Spain, and spaniards know it but the country is having a great development by itself. Its economy grows up more than the EU economy and for example Euzkadi, La Rioja, Navarra, Balears, Catalunya, Madrid and Aragon are part of the 17 spanish regions and all of them have a bigger GIP than EU.

Spain according to the latest stats by Eurostat (2006), is at 97.4 (whereby 100 is the EU25 GDP per inhabitant average).

7 Spanish regions: Pais Vasco, Navarra, La Rioja, Aragon, Madrid, Cataluna and the Illes Balears are above the EU 25 PPS per inhabitant.

While 12 Spanish regions: Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Castilla y Leon, Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura, Valenciana, Andalucia, Murcia, Ceuta, Melilla, Canarias are below the EU 25 PPS per inhabitant.

Yet my point isn't about EU rankings of states....but the usage of EU funds. Granted the majority won't be used on these projects, but they have been and continue to be used elsewhere in Spain which provides an indirect investment by the EU. Simply put, its money that Madrid would have had to originally sourced to say Valenciana, but no longer has to because the EU gives the funding. This means that Madrid now has 'free' money that it can spent on projects to build new metro lines, etc..

My problem is that with Spain practically an average EU nation, that it ought to start giving way to the EU funding and become a bit more like say Germany or Britain, in other words become a net contributor.

Originally Posted by The traveler

So what? What is your point? As far as I know those grants from EU are for helping new coming members reach higher income levels and to develop country's infrastructure. In fact, Spain is a very good example of this theory. By using EU grants Spanish Economy is one of the best performances in Western Europe and now would be a pivotal country in that area. What is wrong about those things? I don't see the all picture about this discussion of EU funding and Madrid infrastructure. On the other hand, we have many Western European countries which their performance is at least ridicule. That's maybe the problem.

Most economists would attribute the current Spanish economic growth to two factors:
- EU inward investment that massages the economy to create jobs and build infrastructure and sustain agricultural practices that are wasteful
- Immigration, what with Spain growing by 4mn over the last few years.

Yet despite those factors, the Spanish economy is growing at 3.7%, compare that to Britain at 2.8% which gets nothing like the inward EU investment or the large number of immigrants in relation to the current population that Spain gets. This is worrying because it highlights that Spain isn't innovating, its simply using the EU funds and external movements into the country to keep the economy going which is unsustainable in the long-term.

Fact is, now is the time that Poland, etc should be getting the EU's funds; instead we have Spain following the same path of France: protectionism to hold onto an antiquadated lifestyle and corporate structure that stiffles the EU, wastes money, damages the EU economy and causes us to loose out to the US and China.

[The traveler]

Originally Posted by nick_-_taylor

Most economists would attribute the current Spanish economic growth to two factors:
- EU inward investment that massages the economy to create jobs and build infrastructure and sustain agricultural practices that are wasteful
- Immigration, what with Spain growing by 4mn over the last few years.

Yet despite those factors, the Spanish economy is growing at 3.7%, compare that to Britain at 2.8% which gets nothing like the inward EU investment or the large number of immigrants in relation to the current population that Spain gets. This is worrying because it highlights that Spain isn't innovating, its simply using the EU funds and external movements into the country to keep the economy going which is unsustainable in the long-term.

Fact is, now is the time that Poland, etc should be getting the EU's funds; instead we have Spain following the same path of France: protectionism to hold onto an antiquadated lifestyle and corporate structure that stiffles the EU, wastes money, damages the EU economy and causes us to loose out to the US and China.

I am agree with you until the last paragraph, which most of that is just your opinion. On the other hand, I can support my theory about Spanish firms could use their profits from construction and other economic areas for booming a new economy based in alternative energies and some kind of high technology that can be competitive with the two giants, US and China.

Probably you should know that immigration is a great factor of economy growth, US is a good example of this. Furthermore, the foundations of US Economy are real state and construction industry, the same ingredients that we can find in today's Spanish Economy, so I think is nothing wrong about immigration as a economy factor.

As I said before no rational data supports your point, it is just an opinion probably based in some kind of educated guess. But if you want to convince me and the rest of the people in this forum you should provide us with more data and facts and not opinions, please. Also, I would like to know what and how UK is making progress in order to be such as competitive economy and contributes to the EU's wealth.