SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, December 30 (EUROPA PRESS) –
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 lane of TF-1; Chafiras-Oroteanda ‘link, a commissioning that is carried out 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 the retentions that usually occur in this section of the TF-1.
In addition, with the branches that are put into service, safety on the roads is gained and travel times in the area are considerably shortened.
“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 added that this will first reduce the times of tour in this area, “which are fundamental.”
“The time savings in this new link can be between 35 and 45%. We also open it by a clear element of traffic safety. These are the two key elements to put these branches into operation, fundamental to end one of the traffic hotspots on the island of Tenerife, in this case in the south, “he commented.
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.
This opening will allow drivers coming 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 from 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 is the one that connects the new roundabout – land side – with the highway in the direction of Adeje and that will facilitate direct exit to the highway for those coming from Las Chafiras or Aldea Blanca.
DOWNLOAD TRAFFIC
This new link, although partially open, will unload traffic volume to the current Las Chafiras link, the only existing one in the area and two kilometers further north, which until this Thursday absorbed all the traffic from the south and north that they intended 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 everything goes well, and after several months in which it was almost paralyzed, it is that it may 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 it currently has, in this case the south of Tenerife “, added the counselor.
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.
HYDRAULIC RUNNER
The works are carried out by a joint venture formed by Ferrovial Agromán SA, Excavaciones Óscar del Castillo SL and Ten Asfaltos SA
In addition, the Regional Council executes, at the same time as the road works, the creation of a hydraulic corridor, which runs parallel to the TF-1 and for which the Government of the Canary Islands and the Cabildo of Tenerife signed a collaboration agreement in 2019 with an amount of 4.6 million euros.
Sebastián Franquis also reviewed the status of many of the important road projects that the Ministry has underway for the island of Tenerife, such as the false tunnel between Las Américas and Fañabé, the Circunvalación de La Laguna, the third lane of the TF-5 between La Orotava and the airport, or the closure of the Insular Ring in Icod.
“These are projects that have been planned by the Ministry and in which the Cabildo has collaborated, and that may be awarded, some of them, at the end of next year or in the first semester of 2023, with which, we will be channeling the main demands for road work that the island of Tenerife has historically claimed, “said the regional councilor.
In his opinion, “we are now putting in place infrastructures that should have been built fifteen or twenty years ago, that is why I understand the anger and annoyance of citizens every time they have to circulate, especially on the TF-5, at certain times. What we have done is put the mechanisms in place to solve this problem in a definitive way. “
Minister Franquis announced that in the next year and a half a considerable volume of road works will be tendered on this island.
“To award a project it takes a year, or a year and a half, since there are many previous procedures to be carried out, and this is what we have been doing in these two years, and it is what is least seen before the public; but it is a fundamental work to be able to start the works “, indicated the counselor, while also emphasizing that” this planning work is the effort that the Ministry has made in recent years so that, in the last part of this legislature, important works are started on this island. “
It is, he said, “a volume of around 450 million euros, which we will invest in various works on the island of Tenerife in the next few years”.
