With almost 67,000 inhabitants, Viladecans is one of the most populated cities of all those crossed by the Rodalies R2 south line. Despite this and the intense business movement that the Baix Llobregat city registers, its mobility on public transport had a serious problem: until this Monday, all the trains circulated through its station but many of them passed by. A historical demand for decades that has now been resolved by ensuring that all Rodalies circulations stop, thus establishing a frequency of train passage every 15 minutes on average.
“We managed to get all the trains to stop in Viladecans, after many years of asking for it both politically and socially,” celebrated the mayor, Carles Ruiz. “It is an improvement in mobility, both for the citizens of Viladecans and for the workers of the companies that are in the municipality,” he added.
With this change, the semi-direct trains from Sant Vicenç de Calders and Vilanova will stop at all hours and every day in Viladecans, just as they do in Gavà and Castelldefels, neighboring cities on the Baix Llobregat coast that have increased the number of residents. and public transport users in an important way in recent years. In Viladecans there are about 7,000 travelers on average and they did not want to be left out. “It was time for them to stop because there was only one every half hour,” said Remedios, a regular traveler. “Little by little we are making progress. In Viladecans there are many inhabitants and it is worth taking the train with the same frequency as any other city in Baix Llobregat,” added Antonio, another user from the town.
The incorporation of the stop will not entail a lengthening of the journey time for the rest of the passengers, according to Renfe sources. The current schedules already contemplated stopping time when passing through Viladecans, although it was not used. It was one of those small margins of maneuver that train drivers have to recover some time when they encounter incidents. Now that they will have to make the stop, they will lose that wild card and the network will not have as much resilience in case of the constant incidents that occur in this section of the network, very congested and with improvement works underway.
The City Council had been demanding it for years and those responsible for the railway infrastructure administrator (Adif) put off every time they were told. They hid behind technical difficulties that have been resolved overnight without the need to carry out any work. The opening of an outlet shopping center in 2016 just a few meters from the station prompted the first change. Shortly after its inauguration, all trains incorporated the Viladecans stop on weekends.
Now it is extended to all trains, as agreed at the last meeting of the joint coordination body between the Generalitat and Renfe, where the owner of the service and the operator also agreed to improve the Rodalies service in Lleida in 2024.
“The new station is pending,” said Carles Ruiz. “We have already seen the first drawings, it will require an investment of 2.5 million euros,” the mayor said about another claim pending settlement. In this area of Baix Llobregat, the improvement of the line is also expected with a project popularly known as the Delta metro, which came out of the box a couple of years ago after sitting in dust for decades and is now in the phase of studying alternatives.
