Coastal railway line unlikely for Bajo Vinalopo and Vega Baja (Alicante)

REBECA TORRO, who heads the Generalitat’s Transport department announced a Tram link between the Marina Alta and La Safor.

“These are the only two coastal areas without one,” Torro commented recently on announcing a €250 million project to extend the Tram network from Denia, where it currently finishes, to Gandia (Valencia).

Torro’s announcement was received with astonishment in southern Alicante where the Baja Vinalopo and Vega Baja areas have no rail connection at all.  The Tram’s five lines all end at the Luceros terminus in Alicante City and there is no possibility of extending the line southwards.

Speaking to the local Spanish media, Jose Luis Saez, mayor of Guardamar, commented that Torro’s statement must have been due to her unfamiliarity with the area.

“We don’t miss having a train, because we’ve never had one,” Saez told the provincial daily, Informacion.

And much as he would welcome a coastal railway line, he said, he was aware of the difficulties involved.

The Santa Pola salt flats, the Guardamar sand dunes and the salt lakes in La Mata and Torrevieja would all pose unsurmountable obstacles for a coastal railway line, Saez said.

“If they didn’t manage to build a line in the 1980s or the 1990s, it would be even harder now when there is so much more protection,” he pointed out.

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