ARCHIVED - Alicante-Catalunya motorway is now toll-free after 48 years

Charges remain in place on the AP-7 ghost motorway between Cartagena and Águilas

On 1st January the toll barriers on the AP-7 motorway were finally raised for the last time as the road became free for all motorists between Alicante and Tarragona in the south of Catalunya, 21 years after the first management concession came to an end and as long as 48 years after the “Autopista del Mediterráneo” first opened.

The effect of this is to remove toll charges which until 31^st January amounted to 45.90 euros for cars (and 62.80 euros for lorries) for vehicles travelling the 373 kilometres between Alicante and Tarragona, although tolls are still being charged between Tarragona and the border with Spain and will remain in place until the end of 2020. Similarly, the most recently inaugurated stretch of the AP-7, between Cartagena and Vera in the province of Alicante, is scheduled to continue being subject to toll charges until 2043, having been brought into service in 2007.

Apart from coming as a relief to regular users of the motorway the removal of tolls is also expected to result in a more even distribution of traffic along the eastern coast of Spain as drivers will no longer head for alternative roads in an effort to save on costs. The national transport workers’ association Fenadismer anticipates that road safety will be enhanced and congestion on main trunk roads reduced, both on highways running parallel to the AP-7 and around the AP-4 between Sevilla and Cádiz, where the tolls were also removed at midnight on 31^st January.

As the management contracts expire on various of Spain’s older toll motorways charges have already been removed from the AP-1 between Burgos and Armiñón in northern Spain, and next year the same will occur not only on the northern end of the AP-7 but also on the AP-2 between Zaragoza and coast of Catalunya.

Meanwhile, motorists who continue to fight shy of paying the toll on the AP-7 between Cartagena and Vera (via Águilas and Mazarrón) will be interested to learn that the PP party in the Region of Murcia is backing calls for the charges to be removed. Senator Francisco Bernabé has announced that motions and proposals are to be presented in the Town Halls of the municipalities through which the motorway runs and in the national parliament, advocating the scrapping of the tolls on the grounds that they act as too great a deterrent for enough traffic to be attracted to the route.

It is worth remembering that last year the tolls on this stretch of road were reduced by between 30 and 41 per cent, following which there has at last been something of an upturn in the number of vehicles using what is still referred to by many as the “ghost motorway”.

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