Laura Fields, The mayor of the town where two trains collided this Wednesday, demands that the Generalitat and the State recognize the singularity of a municipality “carved” by 15 kilometers of tracks, in which 176 people have died run over in the last 40 years
In the first moment after the accident, you were the most critical political voice. She looked angry.
Many years. If you have to talk about investments, you have to talk about investments, and it was time to do it. Especially yesterday it had to be done.
It was also the first to point out the danger of the station curve.
It’s not me saying it, the train drivers say it, and yesterday it became clear that something was urgently needed at that station.
As mayoress, what do you ask Adif and Renfe?
In Montcada we have five train stations and, of the five, only one is accessible to people with reduced mobility or the elderly; only one has an elevator. The rest are stations that have become completely obsolete.
Four out of five stations without elevator in a single municipality, tremendous.
It is true that the project for the Mas Rampinyo station has already been drawn up and the project for the Montcada Bifurcació station is being drawn up, which will mean an improvement in the beach of tracks and accessibility; the one that remains hanging is that of Montcada-Manresa. We ask that a project for a new accessible station be drafted now; Many residents of Montcada i Reixac are being denied the right to mobility.
“In Montcada we have five train stations and, of the five, only one has an elevator; the rest have become completely obsolete”
Could this new project include moving the station to avoid the controversial curve?
It is one of the possibilities that was on the table. The trains are now longer and, in the end, many wagons end up on the curve and, to get off, you have to take a considerable jump because they are very far from the platform.
Do you trust that yesterday’s accident will speed things up?
Let’s hope so.
How does being crossed by so many roads affect you as a municipality?
First of all, it is a security problem that becomes evident at the two level crossings of the R-2. Afterwards, it is a problem for the internal mobility of the city. It fragments us and carves our territory. This over-implantation of railway and road infrastructures means that we have dispersed and remote neighborhoods, and that supposes an additional cost in the provision of services to citizens. That is an issue that I now want to start moving both in Parliament and in the State.
“This over-implantation of railway and road infrastructures in the municipality means that we have dispersed and remote neighborhoods and that there is no feeling of belonging to the city”
You want to do?
Explain to them that this over-implantation of infrastructures that serve the city of Barcelona and the metropolitan region not only carves up our territory, it also means an additional cost in the provision of services to citizens, and it cannot be that the neighbors pay for it.
An example?
Cleaning. It is not the same to have a street cleaning service in a sewn and consolidated fabric than in dispersed and remote neighborhoods due to all those infrastructures that cross us.
They literally break the city into little pieces.
Yes. And that has even blurred our feeling of belonging to the city. Each one feels from their neighborhood.
And how is that solved?
Montcada has already paid a very high toll to the city of Barcelona and the metropolitan region and now there has to be a return to that solidarity.
Will the long-awaited burying of the R-2 be a first step?
It is the opportunity to close one of the scars we have and that will help us unite neighborhoods. It is a capital project for the future of the municipality. Montcada will never be the same again after the burial.
Are you optimistic on that issue?
Yes. The Council of Ministers authorized on Monday the investment of 621 million for the new tender. There is no turning back, the burial is closer than ever. When the machines come in, it will be the day that historical justice will begin to be done with Montcada. It has been 40 years of citizen struggle. This is the capital project, but there are other barriers…
follow.
We have 15 kilometers of railway network in the municipality and of those 14 pass through the urban nucleus.
“The roads do not allow us to make school routes; we would like to, but it is very complicated until the burying becomes a reality and changes the morphology of the city”
Impresses, yes.
In addition, there is another affectation, which is maintenance throughout the entire network. Adif would have to do a much better maintenance of all its space, there is a lot of neglect of the entire railway environment and of the stations in particular. The cleanliness can be greatly improved.
What else? It’s the moment.
Are a lot of things. It directly affects our daily lives. When going to buy bread, at the CAP or at school. In Montcada we cannot make school roads. We would like to, but it is very complicated until burying becomes a reality and changes the morphology of the city.
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In addition to the railways, they have road infrastructures, of course.
Now we have a problem that has worsened with the elimination of tolls, which is the traffic on the C-33, a road that crosses the city despite the fact that we have neither an entrance nor an exit. There is much more volume of vehicles, many more traffic jams, and they are touching many houses in the Montcada Nova neighborhood, which suffer from noise and smoke. We have a meeting with the Mobility Department to put up screens.