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Fifteen years ago the idea began to take shape and a budget was proposed for a project to build a lane specifically for buses and high-occupancy vehicles between Torremolinos and Malaga city. Now Spain's Ministry of Transport has discarded that idea and opted instead for expanding the capacity of the two-lane motorway, adding a third lane.
This is the widening of a nine-kilometre stretch of busy road and plans have now been drawn up. The environmental impact assessment has already begun too. The planning dossier was registered at the Ministry of Ecological Transition on 15 April and has been assigned an experienced project director to oversee the planning process. The estimated budget is 190 million euros and, in addition to the widening of the MA-20 between Torremolinos and Malaga city, it includes a new viaduct over the Guadalhorce river, this time located further north.
The average daily traffic volume on this key route is over 125,000 vehicles. That's 10,000 more than 20 years ago, according to Spain's Directorate-General of Traffic (DGT).
The original design was redesigned in 2019. After drafting the project, conducting preliminary environmental studies and submitting it to public consultation, it now faces the standard phase of the environmental process, a more rigorous assessment. Among other issues, the river basin authority will have to rule on the new viaduct to cross the river at the new location.
The proposed viaduct will be prepared for subsequent extension to four lanes. The main body of the new bridge will be 33.40 metres wide. It involves designing a bypass approximately 1.5 kilometres long and the length of the bridge will be 940 metres. The bypass will follow a gentle 's' curve to separate itself from the current bridge.
The work will be carried out on the A-7 motorway, starting at kilometre 228.5 for approximately eight kilometres. Within this length of road, from the first junction (Los Álamos exit), the two-lane road changes its name to the MA-20. The section begins in Torremolinos, near La Colina residential area and railway station, at the point where the motorway currently drops from three to two lanes in both directions. It extends to approximately kilometre 7.5 of the MA-20 dual carriageway to the junctions where the western ring road intersects with the A-357 dual carriageway and from where Avenida de Andalucía starts. Incidentally, the bus-VAO (high-occupancy vehicles) lane that the Junta de Andalucía is building from El Clínico Hospital to Avenida de Andalucía is already half-complete.
The Torremolinos-Malaga road has an average daily traffic load of 80,000 vehicles along the middle section and 150,000 vehicles in the end section. Throughout this stretch of road there are four junctions in use, with viaducts on the trunk of the MA-20 motorway on three of them, approximately 90, 140 and 150 metres long. A fourth junction exists where the MA-20 crosses under two recently commissioned structures. Not all are viaducts, some are for other purposes.
The project envisages a continuous section of at least three lanes in each direction for the entire stretch involved, improving the motorway's service level.
The earthworks amount to 124,000 cubic metres and the auxiliary facilities will be located near the Martín Carpena station. Access for HGVs and heavy plant machinery will be via the branch road to the port.
The chosen alternative involves demolishing the current viaduct over the river and moving the new one 150 metres upstream. This also protects the area surrounding the Phoenician archaeological site of Cerro del Villar.
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