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Castilla-La Mancha delays the Extremadura AVE by requesting burials, stations, commuter routes and new lines
Next June, the Ministry of Transport must rule on the number and depth of allegations received from Castilla-La Mancha to the Toledo section of the Madrid-Extremadura high-speed rail line, with a future extension to Lisbon.
All these allegations have been presented to the informative study that the Ministry has carried out to decide on the layout of the Cáceres/Toledo provincial boundary section with Madrid, known for processing purposes as Madrid-Oropesa (Toledo).
The resolution of the informative study within the usual deadlines, which It should have been last summer of 2021, It was not possible due to this accumulation of allegations presented jointly by the Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha, the municipalities of Talavera de la Reina, Toledo, Torrijos or Illescas, and the social agents.
This led to months passing without the decision being made, and before the legal deadline in December 2021, the Ministry of Transport had to use the power of extend it for six more months, which will be fulfilled on June 21 next.
The Castilian-La Mancha community, in addition to having previously obtained that the informative study vary the initial plans, and contemplate not linking Madrid directly with Talavera de la Reina but through Toledo capital, has presented a host of allegations together with several city councils.
Given their number and complexity and the changes they would entail, the Community itself proposes that in order not to further delay the declaration of environmental impact, the works, and to avoid problems, the study or file be divided into three: one for the section Province of Cáceres-Torrijos another Torrijos-Madrid, and a third for the routing of Talavera-Madrid goods through the current Madrid-Cáceres line.
Castilla-La Mancha agrees with the Ministry that the new high-speed line, LAV, be for mixed passenger/goods traffic between Badajoz and Talavera de la Reina, and from there to Madrid only for passengers, but in parallel it asks that current line is also used for passengers, moreover, converting it into a double track and also electrifying it (49 million euros of investment)
In Talavera, the allegations demand the burial of the road so as not to strangle the planned development of the city northward.
In Toledo city, a new station would be built to the north of it, for this Madrid-Extremadura HSL.
From Castilla-la Mancha a request is also made connection line within the province of Toledo linking the Extremadura HSL with the Madrid-Seville.
They also request a routing of merchandise not only Talavera-Madrid along the current line, but also to the east and south on the way to Alcázar de San Juan.
Another of the allegations is to request, for the current line to become electrified with double track, a suburban service between Illescas and Madrid.
It is for all this, and the delay that it may entail for the conclusion of the line between Navalmoral and Madrid, that all Extremaduran political parties recently signed a motion calling on the department of the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, to decide the route “immediately and definitively”.