The Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility has moved today that the first works for the integration of the railway in Santander (Cantabria) will begin in 2026 and will conclude in 2029. The works will have an investment of 272.7 million euros.
The timetable and situation of the main actions of the project that will transform mobility in the Cantabrian capital was shared at the 9th meeting of the Monitoring Committee of the Agreement to implement the second phase of railway integration in Santander, which was held in accordance with the commitment made by the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, in his recent meeting with the mayor of the city.
Representatives of the Ministry, the Government of Cantabria, the City of Santander, the Government Delegation in Cantabria and Adif participated in the meeting.
Adif explained that this June it will have the first two projects for its supervision: the railway office building and the detour and temporary network station. These projects will be approved during this year, in order to start the tender of the works in 2025 and its execution in 2026.
These two actions are essential to free up the spaces and deal more simply with the objectives of the integration agreement:
· Modernize and expand the station: rehabilitate the station of the conventional network (North Pavilion) to unify in a single passenger building the provision of all the railway services (LD, MD, Neighbourhoods and network of metric width); and build a new volume, attached to the north pavilion, that will expand the surface of the passenger building and create a new connection of the square of the Stations with the Paseo del Agua.
· Reorder spaces to rationalize the surface occupied by the beach of roads and railway facilities. Thus, the railway service will be made more efficient and spaces will be freed up to improve the integration of the railway in the city.
· Cover the tracks and platforms from the headboard to the pedestrian walkway that connect the streets Alta and Castilla and take urban advantage of the liberated soils.
Investment upgrade
The increase in the prices of raw materials since the conclusion of the agreement in 2018 has led to an update of the investment figures, which amount to 272.7 million euros from the 187.1 million euros initially planned.
The investment for railway operations amounts to 153.2 million euros, compared to the initial 88 million euros; the cover costs 101.3 million euros - which, added to the estimated cost for urbanization, will amount to 119.5 million euros as cofinancing operations - compared to the 99.1 million provided for in the agreement.
In this context, the partners have agreed to subscribe to an addendum in the same terms of distribution of funding provided for in the initial agreement: Adif will finance 100% of the railway actions, while the covering and urbanization works will be financed 50% by Adif, 30% by the Government of Cantabria and 20% by Santander City Council.