Spanish Trams On The Rise

Barcelona

From Wikipedia:

Valencia was the first Spanish city to reintroduce the tram, in 1994. The success of the modern tramway network in Valencia led to the extension of its lines on three occasions.

After Valencia came Bilbao (2002), Alicante (2003), Barcelona (2004) and, in October 2006, the inauguration of the 4.7 km long Vélez-Málaga Tram (which linked Vélez-Málaga with the coastal part of Torre del Mar).

These lines were followed by the Metro Ligero de Madrid (2007), in the Madrid districts of Sanchinarro and las Tablas (ML-1), and linking the capital with Boadilla del Monte and Pozuelo de Alarcón (ML2, ML3).

Then came Seville, where a tramway network named MetroCentro has been running since spring 2007, Tenerife (2007), Murcia (2007), the Madrid suburb of Parla (2007) and Vitoria (2008).

In Tenerife, the tramway is operated by the company Metropolitano de Tenerife. It runs through and connects the cities of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and San Cristóbal de La Laguna, and has a fleet of 26 Alstom Citadis trams. Line 1 (Santa Cruz interchange)–Avda. Trinidad (La Laguna) opened on 2 June 2007. The line connecting the two neighborhoods of Tincer (Santa Cruz) and La Cuesta (La Laguna) followed on 30 May 2009.

Valencia

 Projects, from Wikipedia:

In Spain, 13 tram networks are currently planned to be added to the nine already operating.

New projects, in Cadiz, Cordoba and Toledo, total 160 km (99 mi) in length and two billion euros in investment. Active construction on the Tranvía Metropolitano de Alcalá de Guadaíra has been taking place since 2007, along with lines in Dos Hermanas and Mairena del Aljarafe.

Other networks are proposed for Granada, Jerez de la Frontera, Córdoba, Huelva, Pamplona, Almeria, León, Elche, Burgos, Salamanca, Toledo, Palma de Mallorca, Leioa-Sestao, Baracaldo, el Alto Deva.

There have also been plans to install a tramway in Oviedo (a project to implement this mode of transport, by the PSOE, was discarded after the PP defeated it at an election). In addition, Madrid is expanding its LRT (light rail) network on its outskirts.

 

Cadiz TramTrain

 From Zweisystem:

Spain has shown that their politicians and transit planners understand the importance of the modern tram, especially for large cities, is alleviating gridlock, congestion and pollution.

While our politicians dither with dated transportation concepts and an almost vitriolic hate of the the modern tram, valuable monies are being wasted on politically prestigious transit projects that in the end will not achieve the success that they have been promised to be.

In Metro Vancouver, the result of this current transit planning is all too predictable,: gridlock, congestion and pollution.

 

Bilbao

Comments

2 Responses to “Spanish Trams On The Rise”
  1. Major Hoople says:

    It seems that Spain has also caught your attention. The Spanish plan their trams to blend in with their surroundings like a piece of art. This makes having a city tram system essential as it makes a city look better, while providing a superior transit service.

    Your folks across the pond yearn for world class, Spain has it and sadly for Vancouver, will never have.

  2. Haveacow says:

    Haven’t been feeling well lately and my tablet has been having issues.

    Spain has a real advantage in the form of absolutely spectacular weather and gorgeous never ending sunny days. This makes grass track strips really, really easy. They did spend a whole whack of cash ($300 Billion-$450 Billion, depending on the sources) on Metros and inter-city high speed trains. The large investment in LRT seems to be in a similar response as France in that you can’t have Metros going everywhere, especially in suburban areas. They seem to be copying France in that LRT lines are being added in smaller cities and installed as missing links as well as entire new transport networks in the suburbs of their largest cities.

    A large chunk of the Metro system spending was filling out the massive missing links in the Metro systems of Madrid and Barcelona. The dictator Franco would punish areas that didn’t support him by not building or improving infrastructure, rail and road networks in those places. This policy continued until his death in the mid 1970’s.

    Zwei replies: I hope you are feeling better soon.

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