Asking for AVE answers
Elche mayor calls for meeting with government transport chief
WHEN the high-speed train (AVE) starts running from Orihuela and Elche, supposedly this year, the service will not go directly to Madrid but will take a diversion and stop in Alicante city until the track to Murcia is completed, it was reported last Thursday.
This decision – which has allegedly been taken by the ministry for transport, mobility and urban agenda (formerly public works) – prompted mayor of Elche, Carlos González to ask this week for an interview with the minister, José Luis Ábalos.
The diversion would add 15 minutes to the journey time to Madrid.
Sr González said he ‘needs to discuss everything to do with when the AVE will start running’ with Sr Ábalos, who hails from the Valencia region.
After numerous delays, the track between Monforte, Elche and Orihuela was completed last year but since then has been undergoing tests – and no specific inauguration date has been announced by the government.
Critics claim this is because the state rail operator does not have enough trains to run the promised direct service between Madrid and Elche-Orihuela, so is merely extending the existing service to Alicante in order to make the promised 2020 opening until it acquires the new high-speed locomotives it has ordered.
Sr González said the council and people of Elche know that the safety evaluation of the line is pending but they want to know exactly when and in what form the service will operate.
He assured the AVE is ‘very necessary’ for Elche and the surrounding area.
It ‘will provide a social and economic boost without any doubt’, he added.