The State derails the pacification project of the N-II in the Maresme

to the forecast of investing 384 million euros from the State budgets is added the allocation of Next Generation European funds. All this has enabled the start of the pacification work of the N-II in the Maresme, a historic claim to the territory that began to take shape in 2009 with the transfer by the State to the Generalitat of the ownership of the road with the intention of turning it into an urban street.

The schedule of actions went on forever until, in October 2020, the Maresme Regional Council urged all the administrations involved to close an agreement that would allow a project to go ahead that could not be unstuck until recently days and to which are added 49 million Next Generations funds, provided by the European Union. This additional circumstance obliges to execute part of the project in three years.

As stated yesterday by the Minister of Mobility, Raquel Sánchez, the signed protocol shows the “real commitment of the Government” to the execution of the project. However, he warns that the previous procedures must first be completed, a step prior to concreting the agreements, which will have a multi-year nature and in which the Generalitat will have to justify the investment made prior to the management orders. A very complex administrative process that does not allow to guarantee a calendar of actions. The minister also warned that “this is not a blank check so that the ERC Government can do whatever it wants”.

Until the protocol between the State and the Generalitat was signed, the Maresme Sustainable Mobility Pact project had been paralyzed for three years. The project, promoted by the Department of the Territory, has only been made known in some municipalities, a fact that provoked criticism from the Regional Council and other municipalities. On the other hand, municipalities such as Masnou, Premià de Mar or Vilassar de Mar put forward their own proposals apart from the Regional Council’s Mobility Commissioner.

Recently, and with the logical haste due to European pressure, after three years of waiting, the first firm step was announced, the protocol signed between the State and the Generalitat that will allow 384 million to be allocated progressively, plus the 49 from of European funds, to fulfill the agreed commitment with the territory to pacify the N-II.

On the one hand, Minister Raquel Sánchez announced yesterday in Pineda de Mar, a socialist stronghold, the protocol between the governments of Spain and Catalonia for the pacification of the N-II and the improvement of connections with the C-32. At the same time, today the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, is scheduled to present the mobility improvements in Masnou, a municipality governed by ERC.

The works that will be carried out in the Maresme have their antecedent to the agreement that the two administrations signed in 2009 to carry out the works on the C-32 which provided for the construction of side roads on the route of the expressway. In 2009, the State advanced 97 million of the 400 million committed, but, given the foreseeable elimination of tolls and the conversion of the C-32 into a freeway, the project did not materialize even though it was tendered. At this point, a new controversy arose when the Generalitat did not justify the destination of the almost 100 million, although at the time it suggested that they had been allocated to social housing, which did not prevent the project from having to be halted.

With the agreement signed 14 years later, the State allocates 384 million euros. With the new funding, the Government will execute new accesses to the motorway and will pacify the N-II. The executive project highlights the reduction of lanes, the creation of a cycle path and the construction of several roundabouts at points in the Alt Maresme – from Arenys de Mar to Malgrat de Mar–, where the road goes from four to three or two traffic lanes.

Actions to improve connectivity from the N-II to the motorway include the construction of seven new access roads and the expansion of two more. Thus, new connections are planned in Alella and el Masnou, in Teià, in Premià, in Vilassar-Cabrils, in Llavaneres (where there is only one access in the direction of Barcelona), in Arenys de Mar (already tendered, as the project de Valldegata), between Canet de Mar and Sant Pol de Mar, on the southern access to Calella, and one of the best on the southern access from Pineda de Mar.

An indicative estimate of investment costs drawn up three years ago estimated that the total of the Pact for Sustainable Mobility of the Maresme amounted to 430.7 million, of which 239.9 were associated with the Generalitat and 190.8 to other administrations .

In the same way, the document also incorporates the possibility of creating new accesses to the motorway in Caldes d’Estrac and Vilassar de Mar at the height of the Mercat de la Flor, to divert truck traffic towards the motorway.

In the same vein, the sketch drawn up in 2020 proposes improvements to public transport, such as fixing bus stop spaces on the N-II, transport mode interchanges and park areas

It plans to reduce the circulation lanes to two and widen the sidewalks on the mountain side to 7.80 meters. In parallel, a 2.5 meter wide bi-directional cycle lane will be built. A 1.20m space, which could be landscaped, will separate the two seven-metre-wide traffic lanes, and a 0.80m service crossing will be left next to the railway. The road, at the points closest to the railway stations, will have a single platform. All this with the sole exception of Mataró, which once negotiated on its own the transfer of the N-II as another street in the capital of the Maresme.

Since the release of tolls, the C-32 takes on between 73% and 83% of the traffic through the Baix el Maresme. In Alt Maresme, between 39% and 57% of vehicles use the expressway. Between 16,000 and 28,000 vehicles travel on the N-II section between Montgat and Mataró, with an average of 20,000 on weekends.

The protocol that the state and regional administrations are now announcing, according to the vice-president of the County Council and president of the Mobility Commissioner, Joaquim Arnó, “does not bring anything new beyond a redefinition of the obligations to adapt to the new reality of the 2020 pact agreed upon by political forces and social entities”.