With almost 67,000 inhabitants, Viladecans is one of the most populated cities of all those crossed by the R2 south of Rodalies line. Despite this and the intense business activity registered in the town of Baix Llobregat, its public transport mobility had a serious problem: until yesterday, all trains were running through the station, but many were passing by. A historic demand for decades that has now been resolved, as it has been achieved that all the commuter trains stop there, with a train frequency of 15 minutes on average.
"We managed to get all the trains to stop in Viladecans, after many years of asking for it on both a political and social scale", celebrated the mayor, Carles Ruiz. "It is an improvement in mobility, both for the citizens of Viladecans and for the workers of the companies in the municipality", he added.
With this change, the semi-direct trains from Sant Vicenç de Calders and Vilanova stop at Viladecans at all hours and every day, just as they do in Gavà and Castelldefels, neighboring towns on the Baix Llobregat coast that have significantly increased the number of residents and public transport users in recent years. In Viladecans there are about 7,000 travelers on average and they didn't want to be left out. "It was time for them to stop, because there was only one every half hour," emphasized Remedios, a regular traveler. "Little by little we are making progress. There are many inhabitants in Viladecans and it deserves to take the train as often as any other town in the Baix Llobregat", added Antonio, another user who lives in the town.
The addition of the stop will not lead to an extension of the journey time for the rest of the passengers, according to Renfe sources. Current timetables already provided for the stop time at the Viladecans crossing, although it was not used. It was one of those small leeway drivers have to make up some time when they encounter incidents. Now that they will have to stop there, they will lose this wildcard and the network will not have as much resilience in the event of the constant incidents that occur in this section of the network, which is very congested and with improvement works underway.
The City Council had been demanding it for years and the managers of the railway infrastructure administrator (Adif) gave extensions every time they were told. They hid in technical difficulties that were resolved overnight without the need to carry out any work. The opening of an outlet shopping center in 2016 a few meters from the station prompted the first change. Shortly after its inauguration, all trains incorporated the Viladecans stop at weekends.
It now extends to all trains, as he recalled at the last meeting of the joint coordination body between the Generalitat and Renfe, in which 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", explained the mayor about another pending claim. 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 drawer a couple of years ago after accumulating dust for years and is now in the study of alternatives.
