The Metro system is run by the region of Madrid (I think the agency is called Mitra) and it covers the metropolitan area at large, with about 6 million people. The new extensions are plain nice, but the older parts are below tacky and poorly maintained.
The rapid transit, Cercanias, is part of national railways, Renfe, and has dedicated tunnels within the city and runs above ground from the outskirts.
I can´t argue about the new work being on schedule, but it´s hard to believe because we have not had a new national holiday... A few days ago I read that the Madrid region had accumulated debt of over €10 billion, about 70% from the last four years and most of it from the Metro construction.
The light rail lines that were supposed to open well before the May elections, may be about to start.
Wish your version was true, but corrupt rightwing politics and capitalism are in full swing here. Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
First I emphasize what I also wrote in the diary conclusion: I collected positive examples to follow, and didn't want to claim that everything is rosy anywhere. It was only MetroSur I brought up as example for on time and budget, and the entire subway system only for speed of growth, not even for general good state of being.
But to talk about the problems of the Madrid system is a bit difficult, because on one hand, some accusations (like deficit spending) sound like accusations usually levelled at left-wing governments, on the other hand, everything is relative. E.h., you meantion a few months delay in opening light rail projects, but I only smile given that what I see as 'normal' elsewhere is something like four years of delays at the planning and permits stage, then construction taking two years longer than planned and the opened stuff is only half-finished...
Let's follow the money theme. The cost-effectiveness of the MetroSur project is without parallel worldwide, so if direct corruption was involved, either there s much more corrupton elsewhere, or corruption was masked by even more impressive efficiency.
What does seem probably however is a second level of sleaze, that of getting orders for friendly business, sleaze even if that business does its job fine. Still, in Madrid's case, what was built for mass transit at least made sense (though it could be that lines projected benefitted richer neighbourhoods more, but I don't know Madrid Region's socioeconomy) -- it can't be compared for example with the Italian practice of things, where new lines are often built in the most expensive way possible (say miles upon miles of elevated sections) and with overcapacity. Also, in my memory the combined sum of 12 years of metro construction doesn't add up to €10 billion.
You mention old lines in bad shape; renovating those is certainly a more difficult work than building a new line, though IIRC in the 1999-2003 period, the circle line closing also involved major renovation.
But before you think I'd absolve the PP, let's dig deeper.
Politically, I'd connect the big metro expansion to the previous Madrid region governor and present city major, Gallardón. That the current extension exceeds the previous and didn't go under into too spectacular right-wing corruption may only be due to the heiress's ambition to measure up to Gallardón.
Meanwhile, as Migu repeatedly told me, while Gallardón was busy with the subway, his predecessor was busy building roads, which may explain one less nice thing about the metro: from the last figures I saw, its ridership only grew with the transport market, that is the share of the metro didn't increase.
Going further, am aware of a certain strand of corrupt rightwing politics in Spanish transport projects: a practice of pushing though projects with little preparation and extreme cost-cutting. The Madrid-Barcelona high-speed line as pushed by Aznar is a prime example, with ignored geotechical warnings resulting in expensive stabilising works in tunnels whose mountain simply began to slip, or betting on a non-functional signal system. But there are also Spanish road tunnels which have a bad fame of lacking basic safery systems.
I don't know whether Gallardón was lucky to not hit any big problems or if he (or the people he appointed) was truly a better manager. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Still, in Madrid's case, what was built for mass transit at least made sense (though it could be that lines projected benefitted richer neighbourhoods more, but I don't know Madrid Region's socioeconomy)
In the meantime, I remembered something from the time of the Gallardón-Aguirre change: when plans for 2003-2007 were first discussed, focus was just on renewal and broadening of some old lines with narrow tunnels, but then the more ambitious extension plans came up.
What is the present frequency of service on the overcrowded lines?
Finally, what's up with the Left in Madrid? Do they even control district councils? *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
The left is in disarray. But more seriously there is this idea that day-to-day opposition on issues during the entire 4-year term is not as important as parachuting the right face into the candidacy a couple of months before the election, with disastrous consequences.
Not having been in Madrid for a long time, I cannot really answer you with hard data about frequency of service, just hearsay. here you can see the "average interval between trains", broken down by line and time/weekday within each line. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
Administration is all top-down. I touched briefly on that here.
I really should investigate this more. The Spanish wikipedia claims the function of District Municipal Boards is to organize citizens' participation, but I have never seen this happen. Granted, I may not have been paying attention. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
What can you say about the accident in the Valencia Metro last year? The local and regional governments were not too keen on a public investigation, and the unions claimed they had complained about problems around the stretch of track where the accident happened. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
According to the scientific police [forensics] in the automatic train control system of the Siemens ZSI-27 unit involved in the accident, from June 20 to July 3 of 2004 "one can repeatedly read the activation of the emergency braking because of excess speed". Most often this happens for "exceeding the established speed by 9 to 10 Km/h", but in others this happens "without reaching this limit". Therefore, the General Directorate of the POlice concludes that "this emergency braking has been activated on occasion without exceeding the limiting speed, which might lead to questioning the system's precision". The report continues by explaining that "it will be possible to discard the fainting of the driver", because the automatic mechanism of the train, denominated "dead man", hasn't been activated as can be gleaned from the data obtained from the Event Recording Box Teloc 2200, also known as black box.
Say,
On the other hand, Madrid used to have more train stations. "Norte" (in the West of the town) is now a shopping centre at Principe Pio. That could have been used for a triangular tunnel linking it to Nuevos Ministerios and Atocha. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
