The first to raise his voice was the mayor of Tacoronte, José Daniel Díaz, and criticism rained down on him. They accused him of being against a necessary project for Tenerife, for which he has been waiting for years, of criticizing and not giving solutions. However, in recent days, other mayors in the North have also disapproved of the project of enlargement of the TF-5which covers a total of 17 kilometers, from Guamasa to La Orotava.
The document, which went on public display on April 14 and whose submission period ends on June 7 – two essential steps before the works are put to tender – has as its main objective to end the serious congestion problems suffered by this road, used daily by more than 80,000 vehicles, providing it with a third lane that will mean an increase in its capacity and traffic flow.
However, it is important to clarify that it is part of a broader project that includes the section up to the North Airport and the Bus Vao lane, as its wording appears tendered in the State Contracting Platform for an amount of 2,643,556.36 euros and which has had to be divided because it does not include the La Laguna Ring Road.
This was confirmed to this newspaper by the General Director of Road Infrastructure of the Government of the Canary Islands, José Luis Delgado. “It has been necessary to section the project and divide it into parts because there were things done badly.” Specifically, it refers to the Guamasa-Los Rodeos section, which is not included because “when it was put out to tender by the previous CC government, the work did not include the connection to the Circunvalación, with which it breached the PIOT and other plans and when We went to do it, we found that it had not been planned and that there were two projects with the same stretch of road awarded, that is, contracted to two different companies”.
“We had to put order in the chaos -Delgado continued- to fix the mess that Carlos Alonso left and modify the project to have a serious document and release it to public information as we have done now.” “The document we have today had never been reached, because until now it had been a Chinese tale of infographics. We have been working intensively for four years and we have shown that it could be done. If the previous leaders had done their job, the tails of the TF-5 would not be as they are, ”he emphasizes.
For the expansion of the Autopista del Norte between Guamasa and La Orotava, three route alternatives are proposed: A, B and C, the latter being the one with the least impact, both from the environmental point of view and to individuals. The most notable modifications include the suppression of several links, which go from 10 to 6 and will be compensated with collector roads, and the elimination of the El Sauzal curve. At this point, a straight tunnel will be built in both directions, which will be executed independently from the third lane because it is the only action that can be started from now on without disturbing road users and, at the same time, eliminating one of the points most dangerous blacks
With the rest of the sections it is impossible due to the existing level of occupation and it will be necessary to wait for the completion and opening of the Erjos tunnel. “It will be a great relief and it is what will allow works to begin, but with the current saturation it is impossible, except for the Circunvalación”, affirms the general director.
Despite the benefits of the project, there are mayors of the affected municipalities who, like José Daniel Díaz, criticize it. This is the case of Mariano Pérez (El Sauzal); Juan Acosta (Santa Ursula); Francisco Linares (La Orotava) and Adolfo González (Los Realejos), although the latter is not directly. All have decided to make the documentation available to those affected and provide them with technical assistance and announce, as expected, that they will present allegations despite the fact that yesterday in the island plenary session, the PP, CC, PSOE and Cs supported the project and at the same time rejected a amendment of Sí Podemos in which it was requested to paralyze it to carry out a consultation process with citizens and those affected.
On the contrary, Marco González (Puerto de la Cruz) applauds the decision of the Government of the Canary Islands “to take real steps and move from headlines to action, with a solution for the TF-5 that all of us from Puerto suffer.” It should be clarified that Ignacio Rodríguez (La Matanza de Acentejo) and Juan Antonio Abreu (La Victoria) have not wanted to comment on the matter.
But the most important reproach that they make to him is that during the four years of his mandate there has not been any work meeting to find out the effects that this project has with the municipalities. A statement this last that José Luis Delgado denies. “In December 2021 I presented to all the mayors of the North in La Victoria de Acentejo the advancement of the third lane together with the president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín”, he sentenced.
Francisco Lineras affirms that “it seems disrespectful to me that the one-month term to claim coincides with the electoral period, when it is a very important project with extraordinary conditions. The logical and normal thing would have been to meet with the mayors so that they can present the final project and wait for this month to pass, after four years in which nothing has changed, we can wait a month and with the new representatives that come from the polls, address it.”
In his opinion, “the project is being used for electoral purposes”, a statement with which Mariano Pérez and Adolfo González agree. And perhaps it is the only one that Delgado agrees with. “There are things that should be left apart from the political circus of the elections because it affects the security of the people and you cannot get profit from the discomfort. I can understand the inconvenience of those who are going to have a piece of land taken from them, but it is that they are acting in the general interest, not against anyone. The fact that it’s coming out now is because writing a project like this involves a titanic work effort. This is not decided overnight. It has to go through a lot of paperwork before sending it to technical information and then to public display, it is the result of three years of fixed-gear work ”, he insists.
Beyond this, the regional leader confesses that “it makes him very sad to see how the mayors distance themselves from the importance of the highway and can allow this investment to go to waste and go to another island. I look forward to seeing all the people of Tenerife together to solve important problems”, he declares.
A highway that cannot be treated as a general highway
José Luis Delgado stresses that the Autopista del Norte (TF-5) is very important and Tenerife is not going to have any further extensions. For this reason, his “obsession” is not only because it is not necessary to increase its capacity, but also to reduce the traffic it currently has and for this it cannot be treated as a general highway, because a highway, as a high-capacity road, has regulations that must be met, such as the distance between links, which must be between 2.5 and 5 kilometers, which is currently not met, and a high speed.
