The day has finally arrived: Metro reaches Malaga city centre after a 17-year delay

The historic date has finally arrived as the Malaga metro is to reach the city centre today, Monday 27 March. Two new stations Guadalmedina, next to El Corte Inglés; and Atarazanas, in the Alameda Principal will be officially opened with the inauguration at 5pm by the President of the Junta, Juanma Moreno, and the Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez. Members of the public will be able to start using the two new stops from 9pm.

The milestone opening takes place 17 years after the beginning of the works in Carretera de Cadiz, 14 years since the commencement of works by Avenida de Andalucía, and nine years since the partial inauguration of lines 1 and 2 up to El Perchel.

At each of these periods there were announcements about the possible date of arrival to the city centre in the 760 million euro project which is double the original budget. Since the Partido Popular (PP) came to power in the Junta, the completion of the metro has become a top budgetary priority of the new government, which has seen an acceleration of the work on the two central sections and the reopening of the road to traffic in front of El Corte Inglés, which has been closed off for almost a decade.

The real challenge, in terms of deadlines, was the discovery of important archaeological remains along the entire length of Avenida de Andalucía, from El Corte Inglés to the edge of the river. This gave rise to a novel solution: the decision to rescue the most important remains and create an exhibition area inside the metro.

With the PP at the helm there were also changes to the routing of the metro by the Civil Hospital, which will now go underground, as opposed to the original plans to have a surface route.