Fourteen years after the start of work on the Malaga metro, the underground finally reaches the center of the city, an "achievement of incalculable value in terms of sustainable mobility" according to the president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, with which the number of travelers is expected to double.
The inauguration ceremony held on Monday was attended, in addition to Moreno, by the Minister of Public Works, Marifrán Carazo; the mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre; the Government delegate in Andalusia, Pedro Fernández; and the delegate of the Government of the Board in Malaga, Patricia Navarro, among other authorities.
The construction of this kilometer-long stretch of extension to the historic center began in May 2009 and in these 14 years it has gone through project changes, stoppages and challenges such as the appearance of archaeological remains in the subsoil or the crossing under the Guadalmedina river , which crosses the center of the Malaga capital.
This new section of the metro line runs between the El Perchel-María Zambrano interchange -where the train and bus stations are located- and the Atarazanas terminus station, which is located about 150 meters from the emblematic Calle Larios.
In addition to the Atarazanas station, the other station that has the new section of the metro is Guadalmedina, which also houses commercial, tourist and heritage facilities within its radius.
For the construction of the El Perchel-Atarazanas line, it has been necessary to excavate 543,000 cubic meters of earth, 152,000 cubic meters of concrete have been used, almost 32 million kilos of steel and some 82,000 square meters of retaining walls have been created.
The Málaga metro has consolidated a demand of almost 7 million passengers per year in recent years, a figure that is expected to double, to 14 million, with its arrival in the center, and that in the future it will exceed 20 million passengers. users with the entry into operation of the extension to the new hospital.
The arrival of this means of transport to the center occurs only a few days before Holy Week, in which the capital of Malaga is filled with processions, but from Palm Sunday to Good Friday in the afternoons only the Atarazanas station will be able to use the travelers who leave it, not those who arrive, since it only has one platform and the influx of travelers ends in the middle of the official route, when it is expected that there will already be a crowd of people in the area.
In addition to representing a great advance in the mobility of Málaga residents and visitors, the president of the Board explained that "with this completed work, the reduction of about 5,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide will be allowed, which we will not emit to the air" in addition to a decrease in traffic "by avoiding 3.5 million journeys by car thanks to the metro that reaches the center" of the city. It is about benefits, which "are going to help this green revolution, which must also be one of the fundamental objectives as a society," Moreno added.
