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Positive points for public transport in your country:
From December 19th 2010 two daily French TGV trains entry Spain, through of the extension of two daily TGV services Paris-Perpingan until Figueres, across the tunnel in the Spanish-French border. In Figueres, regional trains in Spanish gauge allow the passengers to reach Barcelona. The time of travel between Barcelona and Paris will be placed in 7 hours, still a very long time of travel.
From December 19th, the new HSL Madrid-Valencia with a branch to Albacete has been opened to the service.
An agreement between both Spanish and Catalan government will allowed that from 1st January the regional trains service that Renfe offers will be transferred to the Catalan government. The first decision taken by this government has been to integrate this regional service with the suburban ones that were transferred in 2009. The second decision is that Renfe will continue giving this service as operator.
PTP has updated its Catalonia Rail Plan 2014, since the ongoing development of the HSL network prevents the former plan from achieving its former goals.
A wild strike was carried out by the aviation controllers in the Spanish airport during the first week of December. As a result, hundred of thousand of passengers stayed in the airports without the possibility to enjoy of their holidays during this week (Five consecutive public holidays); the economy and tourism were seriously affected. After that the Spanish government declared the state of alert and the controllers were militarized, the situation was solved.
Barcelona has opened two new automatic metro lines (L9 and L10) and enlarged two additional lines, L2 and L5. 2010 will enter in the history of the Catalan capital as the year in which a greater growth in the metro network was reported.
TABASA, a state company exploiting a toll tunnel that links Barcelona with its periphery, has started a new toll scheme which introduces some novelties. Those car having 3 or more passengers will have a discount of the 20% in the toll fee. It is not much, but it is a good starting point.
Negative points for public transport in your country:
The Spanish government has helped the companies that are exploiting the toll highways surrounding Madrid to overcome their financial problems. Some years ago, Madrid was full of free highways, but even though the regional government decided to set up a new toll highway scheme in parallel to the existing free motorways. The results of such a business have been a total failure. A very impressive data is that the 60% of the traffic corresponds to drivers who had entered by mistake the toll road system instead of the free one. The Spanish government, responding to the requests of the regional government of Madrid, has helped the private companies that exploit the toll motorways spending hundred of million Euros.
