The Minister of Public Works, Transport and Housing of the Government of the Canary Islands, Sebastián Franquis, has attended this Thursday the partial opening to circulation of the new Oroteanda link, in the municipality of San Miguel de Abona and which is part of the project called Third TF-1 lane.
It is the Chafiras-Oroteanda link, which, according to the Ministry, has been put into service despite the fact that the complete work has not been completed to facilitate the connections of the southern highway with the commercial and industrial area of Las Chafiras and avoid retentions that usually occur in this section of the TF-1.
In addition, with the branches that are put into service today, safety on the roads is gained and travel times in the area are considerably shortened, the note indicates
“We are not inaugurating, far from it, because the work is not finished, we are putting into service several branches of this new Oroteanda link for public interest,” explained Franquis, who specified that this work will reduce travel times in this zone.
The saving of time in this new link can be between 35 and 45% and according to the counselor, it is also opened by a clear element of traffic safety.
The counselor Franquis, together with the president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín; the vice president and insular councilor of Public Works, Enrique Arriaga; The mayor of San Miguel de Abona, Arturo González, and the general director of Road Infrastructure, José Luis Delgado, also supervised the status of the works that have made it possible to put into service two of the four branches of the Oroteanda link, in addition to a new one roundabout on the land side of the TF-1, and a connection through an underground gallery under the highway that connects this roundabout with the one already in use on the sea side.
The Ministry explains that this opening allows drivers who come from Adeje, Guía de Isora, Las Américas or Los Cristianos, and whose destination is the area of Las Galletas, Guargacho and Costa del Silencio, to have an alternative itinerary through the new branch that leaves the highway to join the roundabout on the sea side, which has been in use for a year.
The other branch that comes into service today is the one that connects the new roundabout -side the land- with the highway towards Adeje and that will facilitate direct exit to the highway for those coming from Las Chafiras or Aldea Blanca.
This new link, although partially open, will unload traffic volume to the current Las Chafiras link, the only existing link in the area and two kilometers further north, which until today absorbed all the traffic from the south and north that intended to access or leave the commercial and industrial area of Las Chafiras or towns such as Las Galletas, Guargacho and Costa del Silencio.
Counselor Franquis explained that, in this way, and in the absence of two more branches to be opened in January, the new roundabout in Oroteanda that includes the project will be practically completed in just over a month. From then on, work will focus on the remodeling of the current Las Chafiras link.
The current budget for this work is 23 million euros and the forecast is that by December 31, 2021, 10.5 million will have been executed, which represents 45% of the total.
“The forecast that this complete work of the Chafiras and Oroteanda links has is that, if all goes well, and after several months in which it was almost paralyzed, it is that it could be in operation definitively at the end of the year 2022, or the beginning of 2023, after the boost we have given it in the last year and a half, with which we would be ending one of the serious traffic problems that it currently has, in this case the south of Tenerife ”, added Minister Franquis .
The construction project of the Chafiras-Oroteanda section, promoted by the Government of the Canary Islands, includes the execution of a new link in the Oroteanda area, the remodeling of the current Chafiras link, the construction of two high-capacity collector roads and the execution of a connecting boulevard between the Gomero roundabout and the Chafiras Industrial Park, which has already been completed. The action also includes the fitting out of a platform capable of housing the future third lane of the TF-1. The works are carried out by a joint venture formed by Ferrovial Agromán SA, Excavaciones Óscar del Castillo SL and Ten Asfaltos SA
