New bid to lift toll from southern AP-7
Crevillente-Cartagena highway is ‘one of the most expensive sections of road in Europe during the summer’
PARTIDO Popular (PP) mayors in the Vega Baja have presented a united front to call for the tolls to be withdrawn from the AP-7 Crevillente to Cartagena motorway.
An Alicante Socialist party (PSOE) senator said the move would cost the taxpayer ‘thousands of millions of euros’.
The PP’s request comes after the national government kept its promise to make the AP-7 free to use from Alicante to Tarragona in Cataluña, with the popular measure introduced at midnight on New Year’s Eve.
However, this 367-kilometre section of highway had operated as a toll road for 48 years and the concession handed to the constructor had expired.
In contrast, AUSUR – the company which built the road in the south of Alicante province and Murcia in 1998 – has a 50-year concession to operate tolls, which runs until 2048.
The booths on this highway – at Los Montesinos and La Zenia in Orihuela Costa – are a bone of contention for people who live in the area as they are forced to fork out €4 at each one during the summer and at Easter, and €2.25 during the rest of the year in order to avoid the traffic jams which frequently afflict the N-332 coast road.
The mayors of Torrevieja, Orihuela and Pilar de la Horadada announced that they will ask for a meeting with chiefs from the ministry of public works to present their case.
Torrevieja’s Eduardo Dolón said they will call on the government to buy the company out, and if this cannot be done then they want the toll to be reduced to a nominal fee.
The mayors noted that the tolls – which were introduced during the rule of PP prime minister José María Aznar – are only paid in the middle section of the motorway, which forces many drivers to divert onto the saturated N332. They claimed that this ‘damages’ the Vega Baja area and the booths should be at the start and end of the road, in Crevillente and Cartagena.
Orihuela’s Emilio Bascuñana said they felt discriminated against due to the set up and it discouraged people from visiting the area, as it is ‘one of the most expensive sections of road in Europe during the summer’.
Socialist party (PSOE) senator for Alicante province Ana Martínez lamented the ‘silence’ of the PP in the Vega Baja when José María Aznar approved the current motorway set up and 50-year concession.
Sra Martínez said it was a ‘mortgage’ which the PP had left in the Vega Baja until 2048, which would cost a huge sum to pay off.
She accused the local PP mayors of ‘hiding’ over the issue when their party was ruling Spain
“Now it is very easy for them to ask another government run by another party to break the contract, which would cost thousands of millions of euros,” she stated.
The senator accused them of seeking public support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument.