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The commuter rail service started this morning with disruptions causing delays on up to seven lines of the network. Seven. And that's with only four days left (Monday) until the service is supposed to return to "normal," according to promises from both the government and Renfe.
But beyond the minute-by-minute score of each day, the facts remain as stubborn as they are serious, and a couple of headlines stand out: "Railway chaos is blocking goods from the ports of Barcelona and Tarragona" and "The AP-7 southbound motorway near Martorell will be completely closed again for 5 days, and it is expected that all three lanes will reopen in two weeks.
The story is that the international-gauge railway line that carries goods from the port of Barcelona to France and from France to the ports passes through a tunnel in Rubí that has a crack at one of the bends. The crack has been detected for months, but repair work has not yet begun. You be the judge.
And the AP-7, closed for five days southbound near Martorell, is the route used by goods traveling to and from Europe to Spain, Portugal, and even North Africa. Not to mention tens of thousands of people. You see for yourselves.
So, of course, you go to Parliament and find that Minister Dalmau is offering "a national pact to rebuild the commuter rail system."
"Let's make a national pact to chart a roadmap for the overhaul of the commuter rail system in Catalonia. I know there are angry, distrustful citizens. The virtue of politics lies in deciding where we channel this indignation. If we channel it toward frustration or confrontation, or if we channel it toward fury, toward chaos, it won't make trains run on time, nor will it make the escalators work properly. On the contrary: it will only foster anger and anti-politics."
The idea that the country's political, economic, and social forces should unite on such essential issues as mobility... This isn't a recent notion; it's been around for a long time! But what hope can there be in reforming an instrument that has repeatedly proven useless, among other things because it lacks both funding and a soul? Commuter rail cannot be reformed.
But if yesterday, Councilor Dalmau He himself had to remind everyone that when the Generalitat, which owns the service, gives orders, the operator must obey! When you have to remind someone, it means it's not happening or you're not entirely sure what's going on.
We have ample reason to believe that Renfe and Adif should be part of the solution, which is tantamount to saying that the Spanish government should be part of the solution. Because, ultimately, Renfe and Adif are the implementing arms (when they actually implement anything) of a policy that doesn't prioritize our mobility. For example, they've been unable to connect Barcelona and Valencia, which, to use a Spanish term, are the second and third largest cities in Spain. Let's think about it for a moment: the first AVE high-speed rail line in Spain was inaugurated 34 years ago. Three and a half decades later, it's faster to travel to Madrid from Barcelona or Valencia than from Barcelona to Valencia. Is this just a coincidence? Furthermore, they're lying: Minister Puente even claimed that it had rained like it hadn't in 70 years. This morning, RAC1 explained that this is only true in Granollers. In the rest of the country, the rains of these days were the second, third, fourth or fifth of the last 70 years.
Good morning.