Spain's Ministry of Transport Tenders €6.4 Million for Design of A-3 and A-7 Link

en.Wedoany.com Reported - The Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility (Ministerio de Transportes y Movilidad Sostenible) has tendered €6.4 million for the design of a link connecting the A-3 motorway with the A-7 motorway. This link will connect the A-3 at kilometer 331.5 (near the town of Cheste) with the A-7 at kilometer 333.5 on the northern arc of the ring road.

The project aims to optimize transit traffic between the western inland corridor and the Mediterranean coastal corridor, providing an alternative route to the Port of Valencia via the V-30, and serving as another access point to the Valencia metropolitan area from the A-3 motorway.

The proposed actions include the design of the initial connection segment between the A-3 and A-7, with a priority design speed of 120 km/h, as well as an intermediate interchange with the CV-374 road. The overall objective of the project is to improve travel conditions and road safety for both short-distance and long-distance traffic systems within the Valencia metropolitan area.

The A-3 motorway is the main high-capacity artery connecting Valencia with the western Iberian Peninsula, linking the Madrid-Valencia axis with all major north-south corridors and indirectly connecting to the Port of Valencia via the V-30. It also serves a large and expanding industrial area, multiple residential settlements, housing developments, and significant trip attraction and generation centers. However, on the sections approaching the Valencia metropolitan area, particularly between Chiva and the A-7 interchange, the mixing of long-distance traffic with local short-distance traffic has intensified, causing issues related to functionality, service levels, and road safety.

The DANA (heavy rainfall disaster) event in October 2024 threatened to disrupt the only direct high-capacity road connection between Madrid and the Valencia metropolitan area, highlighting the need for this link to enable flexible traffic management in similar future situations. To facilitate construction, this new approximately 13-kilometer-long connecting road will be divided into two separate construction projects, allowing them to be tendered independently.