The Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Housing of the Government of the Canary Islands has awarded the contract for 348,459 euros for the drafting of the layout and construction project for the new link between the TF-1 and the TF-2 in Santa María del Mar, Tenerife, as well as the completion of a section of the Ofra-El Chorrillo highway, in the municipality of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
The contract has been awarded to the joint venture formed by the specialized companies Novotec Consultores and Técnicas Avanzadas de la Macaronesia, which has a period of eight months to prepare the construction project, which also includes a study on the feasibility of the bridge structure half finished on the TF-5 at the height of the Hospital Universitario Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria.
The Ministry informs that it wants to have an execution project this year to immediately launch the contracting of the works for this section that would join the Avenida Príncipes de España with sections B and C of Ofra-El Chorrillo, crossing the car park next to the Nuestra Señora de La Candelaria hospital, the TF-5 via an elevated structure, a viaduct over the Los Moriscos ravine and surrounding the Las Moraditas neighbourhood.
As a novelty, the drafting of the project that has just been awarded includes the study to remodel the link between the TF-1 and the TF-2 at the height of Santa María del Mar.
A statement from the Ministry indicates that with this action that has just been contracted, the aim is to definitively promote the completion of the Ofra-El Chorrillo road, which began to be executed in 1997 and has been paralyzed on several occasions in recent years. due to administrative and budgetary problems.
To achieve this, the Ministry is also preparing the tender for the execution of the works on sections B and C, which have already begun but whose work was left unfinished due to the aforementioned stoppages.
New entrance to Santa Cruz
The ultimate goal, when the three sections are completed, is to open a direct connection between the TF-1, the TF-2 and the TF-5, which is expected to become the second route into the capital of Tenerife from the south since it will largely decongest the traffic load of this motorway at its entrance to the city.
The calculations of the technicians are that this connection between the two highways absorbs a daily average of almost 40,000 vehicles, since it will attract a large part of the circulation of the TF-1 that wants to join the neighborhoods of the eastern area of Santa Cruz.
The project to connect the TF-2 and the TF-5 with a road next to the San Matías neighborhood began to be processed in 1996, as one more work within the construction of the new Tres de Mayo avenue, but these works were limited to raising the structure of the bridge over the TF-5 and shortly after they were paralyzed.
Finally, in 2007 the regional government put out to tender a new specific project for this connection whose works began in 2008, with the layout of the road and the roundabouts, the temporary asphalting of part of it and the start of construction of the bridge over the ravine del Muerto, which was never finished.
However, this project underwent several modifications that required additional works that hampered the development of the project due to administrative problems and lack of budget, reasons that finally forced the work to stop without having been fully completed, recalls the Ministry.
After these problems, the Ministry resolved the 2007 contract in 2018 and launched the administrative processing of two new contracts separated by sections: one for sections B and C and another for section A, which is more complex to execute.
The first that has been processed is the contract for sections B and C, which are the most advanced due to the works carried out between 2007 and 2008.
