With wild enthusiasm I read in ARA that the Government, the ministry, Renfe and Adif have announced “the deployment of a million-euro works plan, distributed across various stations, which aims to transform these transit points into «dignified» infrastructures while the major works are pending”. The major works will take years and perhaps, by the time they are completed, we will already be stardust, to put it poetically. "The station is the gateway to the system, and its comfort speaks of what the user will find afterwards," said the Minister of Territory, Sílvia Paneque. For example, at the Molins de Rei station, works will be carried out with an investment of “more than nine million after two years of being stalled”. At Llinars del Vallès and Santa Perpètua de Mogoda, more than two million. At Sants, 150 million.
The minister is right about one thing: if you have to wait for hours and hours at a station, without knowing when the train will arrive, it’s worth having comfortable seats, and having wifi and air conditioning. I’m talking, of course, about the indoor ones, because the outdoor ones are a completely different matter. In many, you have to wait between the two tracks, under a canopy (if you’re lucky) and often without any seats. Since the trains don’t run on time, in winter, at dawn, it’s inhospitable to be there, standing or sitting on the ground, freezing to death, and in summer, at midday, even more so, roasting in the sun. But improving the “experience” of being at the station won’t improve the annoyance of not getting to where you’re going. I propose, therefore, that no station be improved. With the 150 million from Sants, the four-odd million from Llinars and Santa Perpètua, and the nine million from Molins de Rei, the minister has enough to pay us a taxi each for every Renfe user. Now that would improve our experience.
