Alex Trelinski
ALICANTE’S AP-7 motorway ring road has become toll free until October in a bid to ease traffic jams in the area.
Transport Minister, Oscar Puente, made the decision to cut delays on the adjoining A-7 highway during the summer months.
He stated that ‘over 90,000 vehicles’ per day use the A-7 while ‘barely 5,000’ users opt for the motorway.
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The pilot test will take in traffic during the last two summer months as well as the run-up to the long bank holiday weekend in October.
Puente estimates that the AP-7 will have ‘around 25,000 vehicles per day’ during this period.
Traffic flows will be analysed to see whether or not it will return to charging.
Oscar Puente said: “We want to confirm traffic levels before taking a final decision.”
Other longer-term decisions are being looked at by the Ministry like making the A-7 a three-lane carriageway in a project costing at least €350 million which ‘would take a few years’.
He added that the temporary fix is about reducing accidents and saving lives in addition to cutting pollution which ‘grows during jams and motorists driving at slow speed’.
The government collects between €2 to €3 million a year from the AP-7 tolls via the Seitt public company which Puente says ‘does not make us rich or take us out of poverty’.
The Transport Minister, Puente, also announced the construction of a third lane of four kilometres in the section of the A-7 between the junctions of the A-77 and the A-3 on the ring road, as well improving entry and exit links of the Atalayas and University of Alicante junctions- costing €90 million.
“It is the most congested section with 50,000 vehicles a day,” Puente said.
“We are going forward with these measures to improve road safety,” he concluded..
