ANOTHER two motorways will become toll-free from tomorrow – in fact, in one case, from 22.00 tonight – and one town is even holding a New Year's Eve party at a service station to celebrate.
Campaigns to end the tolls on the AP-7 stretch starting from the Valencia province towns of Silla and finishing at the pictured exit in San Juan (Alicante province) have been ongoing for nearly 20 years, and the start of 2020 will see it become free of charge for the first time since the 1970s.
Tolls along this 157-kilometre section of the coastal highway from the French border to the Costa del Sol amount to about 150% of fuel costs for the same trek – and even when they were cheaper, they still added extra expense for long-distance drivers, especially commercial haulage firms.
To this end, the vast majority use the N-332 inter-provincial highway instead, which is free of charge.
But the N-332 runs straight through the town centres of Favara, Bellreguard, L'Alqueria de la Comtessa, Palmera, and Oliva (Valencia province), and Gata de Gorgos, Benissa, Altea, Albir and l'Alfàs del Pi (Alicante province), where they are single-carriageway and in the heart of residential and shopping zones.
All these towns have suffered permanent, round-the-clock gridlock, noise levels proven to be up to 50% higher than the World Health Organisation's recommended safe maximum, air pollution, damage to road surfaces and buildings – blackened rendering and worn-out tarmac – hazardous situations for pedestrians, accidents, road rage and very long delays with traffic queues moving so slowly it is actually quicker to walk than to drive.
So it is no wonder they are actively celebrating – or that a huge party will be held tonight at the Sant Antoni service station near the Benissa exit off the AP-7.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com