Global Barcelona proposes to lengthen the short track of the El Prat airport to the Ricarda. The association has presented this Tuesday the conclusions of a multidisciplinary working group who for seven months has studied the alternatives to improve the competitiveness of the Barcelona infrastructure. and has come to a “equilibrium” solutionaccording to its president Maite Barrera, in which they propose extend the runway parallel to the sea and, at the same time, environmentally regenerate La Ricarda.
The formula consists of extend the pavement by 350 meters the shortest track in El Prat, which is now 2,660 meters long. In addition, since those 350 meters would be insufficient to house the largest planes that make the desired intercontinental routes, additional another 300 meters from ‘clearway’. This method, used in other airports around the world, consists of the beacon placement that ‘clear’ the airport environment but that does not imply asphalt.
No noise pollution
The expansion of El Prat continues to monopolize the debate in Catalonia. Waiting for the Government and the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda create a technical table that assesses the different options to improve the connectivity of the facilities, constantly proposals appear that try to marry the (almost) unanimous need to improve airport capacity with the need to protect the A natural space of the Llobregat Delta.
The CEO of Barcelona Global, Merce Conesahas summarized his proposal based on four axes: “that there be better intercontinental connectionsso that more noise pollution is not generated, regenerate Ricarda and improve the environment for birds”. Conesa has continued that the extension of the short runway in 650 meters (partly paved and partly not) would allow the number of flights to be increased, but as long as the volume of operations provided for in the environmental impact statement from 2002.
Necessary investments
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The objective, he stressed, is that the increase in flights is not to the detriment of the peace of the neighbors of the nearby municipalities, something that has also been insisted on by another of the members of the executive committee of Barcelona Global, Sergi Ferrer-Salat.
Both have demanded that the necessary investments both in El Prat and in the airports of Girona and Reus and that a commission of experts be the one to determine the best solutions, once what Catalan society thinks is known.