SPAIN’s minister of transport and sustainable mobility, Mr Óscar Puente, has agreed to form a technical working group to consider the development of railway networks on the islands of Gran Canaria and Tenerife.
Puente made the commitment during a meeting held in Madrid on March 6 with Mr Pablo Rodríguez, minister of public works, housing and transport in the Canary Islands’ regional government.
The meeting was also attended by Mr Antonio Morales, president of Gran Canaria council, and the president of the Tenerife council, Ms Rosa Dávila.
Puente was briefed on new railway projects which are planned to connect the capitals of both islands with their respective international airports, with the aim of developing a sustainable transport system in line with the Spanish government’s decarbonisation objectives.
These plans will now be considered by the new working group, whose initial task will be to further develop infrastructure projects and examine the viability of future rail services.
The Gran Canaria council has developed plans to build a 57km, 1668mm-gauge railway running from the capital Las Palmas via the airport to Meloneras.
The project received a total of €22.4m from the council and the Spanish Ministry of Development between 2009 and 2018. No further progress towards tendering and construction was made due to the difficulty of obtaining the €1.65bn required to build the line, according to the estimates prepared in 2019.
The Spanish government has continued to provide development funding for rail projects on the Canary Islands over the last 10 years, according to Rodríguez.
“This funding has enabled us, amongst other things, to be able to have projects at an advanced stage of development, but it is obvious that this is not enough,” he says. “We have to establish a much larger funding framework, looking to financing from the European Union.”
“We will have the environmental impact assessment in the first half of this year, and we have started the process to acquire land, which will cost and around €16m,” Morales says.
Gran Canaria has sought a €400m grant from the European Union (EU), for which approval from the Spanish government is now required.
“The Canary Islands have transport problems and we believe that rail is perfectly suited to decarbonising transport and providing a better service to the public,” says Mr José Antonio Santano, secretary of state at the Spanish Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility.
According to Santano, the working group will consider the request made by the Canary Islands regional government to include the new railways in Spain’s national network as maintained and operated by infrastructure manager Adif.
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