Rail Transportation in Spain

Rail Revival

Because high-speed rail allows for easy, zippy travel between urban powerhouses, it has carried economic benefits to smaller cities along the way When the AVE (the Spanish acronym for the country’s highspeed system) brought Ciudad Real and Puertollano to within an hour of Madrid, both cities were strengthened economically The newfound proximity solidified Ciudad Real as a university and regional business center, and the effect spilled over into nearby Puertollano.

Along the Madrid–Seville line, the city of Córdoba, formerly a regional industrial center, took the arrival of rail into account to manage new development. City planners moved the rail lines underground and rebuilt the station, freeing swaths of green space, and designed a corridor of hotels, conference centers, and other facilities to attract visitors. The city profited both physically and economically.

Zaragoza, midway between Madrid and Barcelona, has already reaped the benefits of the high-speed line that reached the city in 2003, and it expects to gain even more by the time the line is complete. The city, already a regional hub, capitalized on the new station by expanding related businesses and services and by hosting 2008’s International Exposition on Water and Sustainable Development. In the past, travelers rode for three to four hours to reach Zaragoza from Madrid or Barcelona; the AVE cut that time in half. The city has developed hotels and facilities to attract meetings and conferences. “Zaragoza can serve as the point between the two cities,” says Jose Luis Abad of the group High Speed Zaragoza. “We’ve been able to take advantage of new line to modernize the city— transform it into a modern center, a perfect business meeting place.” Zaragoza also houses Indra’s high-speed control center, with its walls of vibrant lines and dots representing trains as they move around the country in real time.

Mikel Murga, managing director of the Spanish consulting firm Leber and a lecturer at MIT, has served as an advisor on rail issues around the world. One city where he consulted was Bilbao, which opened its metro system in 1995. “Because of the subway, the city has evolved and changed,” he says. “Elected officials have been emboldened to act in ways that would never have been possible before the subway.”

Murga explains that the city has been able to focus planning on pedestrian traffic instead of cars; one project calls for making the downtown region a pedestrian-only plaza. “These are the kinds of changes that can only be explained by the contribution of rail,” he says. The economic benefits reach individuals, too. “Young people who are trying to pay a mortgage—if they need two cars because they live far out of the city, there’s a tremendous impact on their budget,” Murga says. “We’ve made estimates of an additional 2,000 euros (currently about $3,200) per person per year, depending on whether someone has to rely on a car or not.”