Zaragoza infrastructure - who's paying?

[jabird]

Curious to pass through Zaragoza a couple of days ago, and see:

1) A massive new "multimodal" station - but a couple of k's west of the old one, heading out of town. 8 platforms for just 6 services in the hour I was there (granted, it was Good Friday, but 2 platforms could have handled this. I can't see how they'd need more than 4 at the busiest periods).

2) Proposals to build another AVE station near the airport. Fine, air to rail integration is something to be encouraged. But can it really be justified for an airport which currently only handles 6 scheduled flights daily?

3) A new line being built to the south of the city, I believe to help the AVE run from MAD to BCN without needing to go through Zaragoza, hence making (1) even more pointless.

3) Looks like that old money waster Expo is just round the corner in 2008. My guess is that this is encouraging the two above.

Now I'm all for "Architectural theme parks", if they are (a) genuinely impressive, and (b) good value for the taxpayer, or funded by private enterprise / trusts.

My understanding is that the Guggenheim in Bilbao has increased tourism to the city 5 fold, and that it was largely funded by the Guggenheim Trust - but also with some Euro funding?

Valencia seems to be spending a fair few millions on the City of Arts and Sciences, but imho this is a world class facility, with Calatrava being likely to be appreciated as much as Gehry in the next decade or so. I don't know about the figures for this particular development, but I have seen many no frills airlines follow TOM into VLC, with the airport experiencing 2 years of 35% pa pax growth.

I appreciate that Zaragoza has its own attractions, and that it is on the pilgrim route to Santiago DC. But I just don't see how the infrastructure developments I saw there could ever justify the costs involved. I presume this is part of the TENS programme (Trans European Networks), and therefore as a fellow EC member state, it is muggings British tax payer who is helping to foot the bill again.

If I am wrong, please do correct me..............

(Mods, if there isn't enough airport related content in this thread, would it be better in JB?)

[anguspm]

Sorry for the delay in the response. Had to ask the fontr of knowledge indoors (shes never been wrong you know) who hails from there.

1) This is not yet operating to full capacity and is where the new high speed link between Madrid and Barcelona will stop. At which point the additional platforms will be required.

2) These proposals are more of a "wish" from the local city government and realistically only have a small chance of materialising. The Local (ZAZ) and regional (Aragon) governments want to develop Zaragoza as both an industrial centre and turist gateway to the Spanish Pyrennes. Whether it will happen is debatable. Personally it appears they are banking on the limited remaining room for expansion in Barcelona (geographically constrained).

3) Well the first of the two anyway :-) Do you have any more information on this as she has no idea what line you´re referring to as there are no proposals and currently no construction. Personally I think you might be confusing it with a road development for navigate the city to the South instead of the half completed ring road that goes by the north?

3) The Expo isn´t really encoraging this but has helped some smaller projects get off the ground. Thankfully her parents house is less than 500m from the site so although it is IMO a great white elephant the very real benefit is the house price is already starting to rocket!!!

PM if you´ld like any more info, doesn´t appear to be too popular here in Airlines airports and routes....

[jabird]

Angus,

1) Afaik, the AVE does run to Barcelona, but only has dedicated tracks to Lleida.

2) Yes, there were plenty of cranes there, but ditto for various other cities. I believe the current population is c. 600k, but the area around it is not dense. I'm not sure of a UK equivalent, as somewhere like Leeds has a very well occupied hinterland, and also in terms of rail infrastructure, many more commuter and regional/ IC lines coming in.

3) It was a massive bridge, which I went under late at night. I'm pretty sure the sign on it said AVE, and the tourist office pointed to a map showing the rail route going round to the south of the city. Looked more suited to carrying rail lines on the top, and iirc, there were cables for this too, but I didn't get a close enough look to confirm.

4) I'm sure the Expo does offer spin-off benefits, but how many of them ever made a profit for the cities concerned?

And, from Railway Technology:

"The choice of Seville to host the world Expo in 1992 prompted its choice as the destination for the first high-speed line, a 417km (259-mile) link from the capital, Madrid."

http://www.railway-technology.com/projects/spain/

Can't find much more about Expo 2008 in English, but there does seem to be some backlash:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/world/2004/12/302960.html


PM if you´ld like any more info, doesn´t appear to be too popular here in Airlines airports and routes....

If no one else joins our debate, no doubt we can continue by pm. It is still about infrastructure, some of which is aviation related (and after all, TENS and systems like the AVE are also partially aimed to offer an alternative to flights).

[anguspm]

I´ll get the better half to have a look into this.

For now I would say an English city equivalent would be somewhere like Exeter or Norwich. Of course the difference is that since Roman times ZAZ has been an important stop on the main highways:

Madrid - Barcelona
Bilbao - Barcelona
Burgos - Barcelona

Whilst there are trains that run MAD-BCN the high speed link isn´t yet fully operational, it should have been but delays to public works aren´t the preserve of the British!!!!

Significant for the aviation industry in Spain is what effect will this new high speed (3hrs) link have on the "puente aerea" (air bridge) between MAD - BCN which is currently the busiest city pair (not sure if pax volume or number of flights) in Europe....

[jabird]

Are you really saying that MAD to BCN is busier than:

PAR to MRS?
LON to DUB, GLA, EDI or AMS?

but I would guess you will have a similar effect to what Eurostar has done to LON to PAR.

Namely, it has captured a large amount of market share, but its usage is still well behind projections, and I don't think it will ever recoup its costs.

Rail can and should compete where the journey time is upto 3 hours, and win hands down if the start and finish points are near the stations at each end.

I understood that MAD to BCN would be more like 3 1/2, so this would be an interesting one to watch when it is finished.

[anguspm]

MAD - BCN is 55min by air yet 6-8hrs by road.

At the last count there were over 40 daily departures in each direction with the smallest equipment being MD 82´s. The route is now served by four airlines I can think of off hand:

Iberia, Air Europa, Spanair and Vueling.

Its an interesting concept that was originally started by Iberia many years ago and has now developed into half hourly departures with planes departing within 10 minutes of each other during peak times.

To provide additional capacity on the route during the peak am and pm travel periods Iberia will typicaly fly routes such as MAD - BCN - HAM - BCN - MAD and the reverse.

Although not 100% sure but at one time it was (and indeed may still be) the busiest city pair in the world. Now how they measure the "busiest" is always subjective but still mighty impressive!

Interesting you should comment on the Eurostar as I spent a large part of my childhood in Folkestone and the surrounding villages!

[jabird]

Angus,

I think:

"Although not 100% sure but at one time it was (and indeed may still be) the busiest city pair in the world. Now how they measure the "busiest" is always subjective but still mighty impressive!"

is one for another thread!

I take an interest in all high speed rail projects, because I think the principle should be supported. For short journeys, trains should be quicker, and they also avoid all the hassles of getting to/from airports, security etc.

In theory, they are also better for the environment, although I'm not convinced that this is always the case.

I am also concerned to see that all transport "pays its way", which is why I have many deep suspicions about the TENs programme.

I understand that the AVE lines do at least have a much lower construction cost per km than the WCML upgrade in the UK, but I'm not so convinced about some of the building work I saw around ZAZ.