The Government of the Canary Islands gives the green light to the penultimate stretch of the Island Ring and moves towards a closure that will change mobility on the island of Tenerife. The Ministry of Ecological Transition and Territorial Planning, through the Environmental Assessment Commission, has given its approval of the Environmental Impact Statement (DIA) for the layout and construction project to close the Island Ring between San Juan de la Rambla and the Buen Paso roundabout, in Icod de los Vinos. A key step that will allow this work of 175 million euros to be put out to tender in 2023. The insular president, Peter Martin (PSOE), yesterday expressed his satisfaction with this essential procedure and guaranteed that the work can be started “before the end of the year.”
It is a new dual carriageway, which will have four lanes, and which will run south of the current TF-5. The project for this section has been drafted since 2007, but its update was contracted by the regional Council at the beginning of 2021. In November 2021 it went on public display and 14 months later, the Environmental Impact Statement has already been approved.
To contest “this year”
Pedro Martín highlighted the importance of this environmental approval which, together with the La Laguna ring road project (from Guamasa), “gives us the guarantee that, once all obstacles, studies and necessary evaluations have been overcome, the work It will be able to go out to the contest this year ». In his opinion, these are two key actions to begin to unclog the Northern highway (TF-5) and reduce the queues that have been suffered for more than three decades.
The First Vice President and Island Councilor for Highways and Mobility, Enrique Arriaga (Cs), also said yesterday that “during this mandate we have managed to draw up important projects that did not exist and obtain the indispensable and complicated environmental impact statements. In this way, we managed to prepare the procedures to tender, now yes, the works of important infrastructures that will help improve the mobility of Tenerife ». For Arriaga, the Island Ring is “one of those fundamental ways that will improve the quality of life of the people of Tenerife and improve the economic flows of those who live in the North.”
This action between San Juan de la Rambla and Icod will not have major effects on traffic, since practically the entire route is newly built. It will run further from the sea than the current TF-5 and will have three tunnel sections, the total cost of which exceeds 48 million euros. The longest tunnel, located at the beginning of the route to avoid a protected space and the ramblero area, measures about 975 meters. There is another of 320 meters, which comes out of the Las Monjas ravine, and a third of 826 meters, in Las Cucharas.
The new highway, which crosses the municipality of La Guancha, will actually be a double track, with two lanes for each direction of traffic and with independent tunnels. The old layout of the TF-5 will continue to be available as an alternative. Also, it will solve historical deficiencies of the guanchera town, such as having a safe access for all types of vehicles from the TF-5. The great junction that the project provides, above Las Crucitas, will make it possible to forget about the dangerous crossing of the TF-5 with the TF-352, through the ascent to the Solid Waste Island Plant (PIRS). This new road and safer access will also serve to make the La Yegua industrial estate project viable, pending development since 2001.
The work between San Juan de la Rambla and Icod will allow the closure of the Island Ring to the North to continue, since it will connect to the east with the current road between San Juan de La Rambla and Los Realejos, and with the section already in use between Icod and El Tanque, on the west side. The closure of the ring between El Tanque and Santiago del Teide is currently being executed, the largest work carried out by the Canarian Government, with an investment of 240 million euros and the longest tunnel in the Archipelago, 5.1 kilometers long .
When the section of the Ring between San Juan de la Rambla, La Guancha and Buen Paso is underway, only the project for the most complicated area will remain pending, the approximately seven kilometers that separate the end of the TF-5 motorway in Los Realejos. from the nucleus of Las Aguas, in San Juan de la Rambla. In 2001, the Government of the Canary Islands published the Special Territorial Plan and Informative Study of the Northern Island Corridor, which considered ten alternatives to extend the Northern highway from the San Vicente realejera area. The chosen alternative, with a road over viaducts and a huge bridge in the Ruiz ravine, had a great environmental impact and garnered a legion of detractors. Nor was it very respectful of the urban centers of San Agustín and San Vicente, which is why it also accumulated opponents in Los Realejos. It received 13,812 allegations against it and it was discarded. Currently, the Canarian Government and the Cabildo are finalizing a new project that is more respectful of the environment and the landscape.
Air quality study
The Canary Islands Government indicates that this favorable environmental declaration of the penultimate section of the Insular Ring will be published in the next few days in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands (BOC) and arrives “after carrying out the pertinent public information and consultation procedure with all affected administrations and people involved and after collecting all the mandatory reports from the different services to be consulted. Among its conditions, it is established that “a study of the air quality in pre-operational states must be carried out, as a starting point and a comparison with the situations that occur in the construction and operation phases”. With regard to noise pollution, for all the phases into which the project is divided, a noise measurement point must be added to those already proposed and additional documentation for monitoring and control of sound effects.
environmental restoration
Once the construction project of the future highway is defined, including all the detailed and precise information of the final action, “it will be in a position to prepare an annex of environmental restoration and landscape integration, which must include the considerations and conditions provided by the different public administrations that have reported on it”, adds the regional Council for Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning.
The DIA also points out that “prior to the start of the works and during the verification phase of the redefinition, new surveys and inventories of vegetation and flora, as well as of avifauna and bats for the entire route of the future highway». In addition, an Environmental Surveillance Program is incorporated. In the same Environmental Evaluation Commission, held yesterday, the DIA of the project to modify the update of the section of the Insular Ring between El Tanque and Santiago del Teide was approved, also promoted by the Ministry of Public Works.
