Wednesday marks 20 years since the entry into operation of the AVE between Madrid and Lleida. Since October 11, 2003, Renfe has transported 16 million passengers at high speed between Barcelona, Camp de Tarragona, Girona, Figueres, Zaragoza, Madrid, Andalusia and the north of Spain, according to the company. Companies, users and some institutions agree that the first Catalan province to be connected to high speed today is the one that needs the most investments. They demand affordable frequencies and prices and low-cost train stops.
The service started with four trains in each direction. It took 2 hours and 40 minutes to get to Madrid. Lleida now has 40 daily AVE, Avlo, Alvia or Avant services.
"Having AVE in Lleida has connected us to big cities: Barcelona in one hour and Madrid in two hours and five minutes. I work at the Arnau hospital in Vilanova and many colleagues live in Zaragoza and Barcelona. It was impossible before." José Manuel Porcel, medical director of the hospital, explained this on Thursday, while waiting for the train that was taking him to Madrid, which arrived a quarter of an hour late. He also said that a train that left Zaragoza at seven in the morning has not been recovered, which has made it "very difficult" to hire Aragonese professionals at the hospital.
Carles Feixa, professor of Social Anthropology at Pompeu Fabra University, shares this complaint. It goes back and forth from Lleida to Barcelona twice a week. It is part of the WhatsApp group Avanteros pringats, embryo of the Plataforma Usuaris Avant Catalunya, which calls for more frequencies and more affordable prices. "The situation - he says - is dramatic. There are only two trains in the morning, old ones, they fill up immediately and, if they are not ordered three or four days in advance, there are no seats. They canceled the 9 o'clock train before the pandemic and it hasn't recovered".
The president of the Chamber of Commerce of Lleida, Jaume Saltó, considers the lack of frequencies to go to work in Barcelona to be a problem and assures that the cost of the ticket is "very expensive, it is one of the most expensive high-speed sections". He proposes that the institutions talk to the low-cost lines so that their trains stop in Lleida, recover eliminated trains and more places on the seven o'clock in the morning train to Madrid: "There are people who travel by car to Zaragoza and there catch the train".
Saltó believes that it would take a common front of institutions and employers, unions and residents, "to all go together and start with serious things". "The parties - he adds - could include it in the negotiations they have now to form a government as one more issue, this is relatively simple".
The president of the Diputació de Lleida, Joan Talarn, insists that the services have been degraded in recent years "due to the inexplicable decision of Renfe and Adif not to recover the frequencies of passage that were cut due to the pandemic". The Provincial Council shares with the Avant platform, driven by CC.OO. and the Lleida FAV, the need to adjust timetables and prices to make working and living in Lleida and Barcelona or Madrid compatible and guarantee a connection with local transport.
For the delegate of the Generalitat in Lleida, Montse Bergés, high speed has a positive impact on the economy and people's lives, as well as pending subjects. "Institutions and users demand an increase in frequencies and that the AVE is part of the public service and has subsidies", notes Bergés.
The mayor, Fèlix Larrosa, believes that Lleida should be proud that the station is in the center and affirms that being connected to high speed is a historic opportunity for the city. "You are not - he asserts - 160 km from Barcelona or almost 500 from Madrid, you are one hour from Barcelona and two from Madrid, you get closer to the world and the world gets closer to you". Twenty years later, with the entry of new operators, the mayor believes that it is time to claim the stop in Lleida and to face challenges such as the recovery of frequencies from before the pandemic. A few days ago he already raised it with the president of Renfe, Raúl Blanco: "to place Avant seats on the AVE to go to Barcelona and Zaragoza". He explained that every morning buses hired by civil servants arriving from the Aragonese capital to work arrive in Lleida. Another battle for Larrosa is that the international convoys that leave Madrid stop in Lleida.
