A NEW call has been made for tolls on the AP-7 motorway in the Vega Baja to be suspended after the government said the road will be toll-free around Alicante until mid-October.
The decision was made by Transport Minister, Oscar Puente, on Monday to reduce congestion on the A-7 around the provincial capital as an `’experiment’ to measure new traffic flows.
Alicante Provincial Council will now ask the Ministry to extend the suspension to the south of the area.
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Council vice-president, Marina Saez, says the request comes from Vega Baja mayors who have demanded that their ‘historic request’ is listened to and that the ‘Pedro Sanchez Government should stop ignoring them’.
“It is incomprehensible that the only toll road in the entire Valencian Community is the AP-7 between Los Montesinos and Villamartín-La Zenia,” said Saez
“This harms not only residents but also the thousands of tourists who visit us- especially during the summer,” she added.
The AP-7 section has just 6,000 vehicles using it per day with Saez stating that it is underused and for ‘just seven kilometres, users must pay an exorbitant toll that exceeds nine euros’.
The franchise to run the Vega Baja tolls runs until 2048 and is operated by a different company to that administering the Alicante AP-7 by pass which is a publicly-owned firm- meaning that its easier for the government to strike a deal there.
The overwhelming majority of local motorists shun the AP-7 and its charges in favour of the coastal N-332.
Marina Saez said: The section between the Orihuela Costa beaches and Torrevieja is very congested and suffers continuous delays of several kilometres, especially in summer, with over 40,000 vehicles using it daily.”
“These same traffic jams occur on the CV-95, specifically in the last section on reaching Torrevieja and that could be resolved by eliminating the AP-7 toll,” she suggested.
Previous calls for toll liberalisation from mayors like Torrevieja’s Eduardo Dolon have come to nothing, and it seems unlikely there’ll be a positive outcome to this latest demand.
