On September 1, 2021, decades of charging for driving on these highways ends. The end of the concessions has its positive side, no doubt, but it aggravates the burden on public accounts with those same highways.
The actual AP-2 It is one of the oldest highways in Spain, as it was built between 1969 and 1977, linking Zaragoza with El Vendrell, an alternative to the N-II. Tomorrow it will stop being toll, it always had been. It is the main connection of Catalonia with the rest of Spain by road, in addition to the AP-7.
The latter, for its part, is a highway that runs between the border with France (La Jonquera) and Almería (Vera), which also has a separate section between Malaga and Algeciras. The first section of the AP-7 dates from 1969. It was a long time before circulating through Spain on high-capacity roads was a reality.
Much of the AP-7 had already been released from tolls. In 2020 it was already possible to circulate between Salou and Alicante without having to pay a penny. From tomorrow, Nothing will be paid between France and the Alicante ring road. The Cartagena-Vera section and the Malaga-Algeciras section will continue to be paid.
This video was the germ of the movement «No vull pago» (I do not want to pay), which protested against tolls by passing drivers without paying, taking advantage of a legal vacuum that was blocked that same year
Not only that, the tolls dependent on the Generalitat de Catalunya in the C-32 (Montgat-Palafolls) and C-33 (Barcelona-Granollers). An end to a historical asymmetry, whereby Catalonia had highways first, but it had toll roads, and the difference became palpable when in the rest of Spain there were hardly any tolls, because the works were made with public money.
The AP-2 and AP-7, when liberalized, will save their users more than 500 million euros a year
What’s more, if we do a little memory, and we go to 2012, there was a great claim in Catalonia against tolls, and it was precisely the independence movement. On March 29, a neighbor from Angles decided that he would not pay his toll on the AP-7 and uploaded the video to YouTube. It was the spark of an anti-tolling movement.
The Government of Spain, then part of the Popular Party, ended up settling the issue by eliminating the legal gap that tolerated passing a toll without paying. From there, the movement went lower profile, but that precedent was set. The Catalans were fed up with paying, repaying and tripping already amortized highways and with long concessions for political reasons. From tomorrow the State will no longer have a kilometer of toll in Catalonia, those that remain depend all on the Generalitat.
The images of the tolls in Catalonia jammed with cars will now become a stock image
At first it will be a very happy moment because motorists will be able to pass through the tolls with the barriers raised, without stopping, only respecting a small speed limit while the facilities are dismantled. There will be a large transfer of traffic from alternative routes to highways.
In Catalonia there will only be four sections with tolls totaling 130 kilometers, which are in force until 2037-2039
Among the beneficiaries, all those drivers who will save good money and who will not have to choose if they save it in exchange for taking a higher risk (driving on two-way roads) or if they continue to deposit money in private companies that had the concession of exploitation.
Among those harmed, the employees of said concession companies, especially the collectors, who despite the automated and digital means are still at the booths for payment in cash or by card. Today is your last day of work. Regarding the maintenance of these roads, will cost everyone money, not users.
AP-7 passing through Barcelona – Photography: Jorge Franganillo (Flickr) CC BY
The happiness may be temporary, the State already had a beastly road maintenance deficit (lack of investment), and between 2018 and 2021 it has been burdened with kilometers of highways that are no longer toll roads: AP-1, AP- 2, AP-4 and AP-7. That deficit is increasing.
Although there will be an evident collective benefit due to the reduction in the accident rate of the alternative roads -as already happened with the AP-1-, since all this has a cost, the question arises of how these roads are paid with public money, charged to budgets or charging again for its use although that does not imply toll booths or barriers.
The current government, a coalition of PSOE with UP, has been letting it fall for months that it is something that is being studied, that it happens in countries all over Europe … inch by inch they are creeping into us. Anti-tolling movements in Catalonia will not disappearThey will be on the lookout in case someone thinks of putting them back on, and they will surely manifest. In the rest of Spain it will also happen.