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MORE motorways are set to become toll-free starting from September, now that their franchises have expired and the State has taken on funding and maintenance.
Tolls are charged by private companies which maintain and repair the highways using the fees paid by users, but have tended to run at a loss since the start of the financial crisis in 2008 as even long-distance lorry drivers would use alternative, even far less convenient, routes to avoid paying.
The latest to become free of charge to use total 477 kilometres – more than the distance from Madrid to most of Spain's coasts.
A stretch of the AP-2 (first picture) through Aragón, which runs from the region's largest city, Zaragoza, to El Vendrell in the province of Tarragona and serves as a direct connection from the former to Barcelona will cease to attract a charge from September 1 – a total of 215 kilometres.
The AP-7 in the east, which forms part of the E-15 from northern France to the Costa del Sol, will be free to use along two of its northern stretches, totalling 262 kilometres.
From Tarragona, the southernmost provincial capital city in Catalunya, through to La Jonquera (Girona province), the last town before the French border, along the AP-7 will no longer carry a fee.
Neither will the stretch from Montmeló to El Papiol in the province of Barcelona.
Massive savings for motorists: Catalunya's 52% of toll roads drop to 0%
Spain's ministry of transport calculates that, based upon the current volume of traffic on all three of these chunks of motorway – 13 million vehicles annually - drivers will save a total of €515 million a year.
But given that the absence of the tolls is likely to mean more motorists using these roads, the actual saving per annum to the general public could be as high as €752m.
Three years ago, Catalunya was the region with the highest percentage of toll roads – 52% of its total – and, from September 1, will not have a single one left.
As for Aragón, the 102 kilometres of the AP-2 that cross the land-locked north-eastern region – not counting the part which runs into Catalunya – will now be €90m per year cheaper to use.
At present, 19% of Aragón's trunk roads carry a fee, but from the start of September, this will shrink to 6%.
In the hypothetical scenario of a motorist driving the entire network of Aragón's trunk roads in one hit, the toll bill will be 76% cheaper from this coming Wednesday than it will have been the day before.
Tolls axed so far
Every year, fewer and fewer highways in Spain carry a fee for their use as, gradually, they have become de-privatised once their management companies' contracts run out.
One of the most high-profile of these was the AP-7 between Silla, just south of Valencia, and El Campello, a few kilometres north of Alicante – a stretch of around 200 kilometres which had become so expensive that the tolls could cost up to 150% of the petrol used for the same journey.
The only other trunk road serving the towns along the southern Valencia and northern Alicante coast is the N-332 inter-provincial highway, which is almost entirely single-carriageway and cuts through several town centres.
In fact, the axing of the tolls on the stroke of midnight on December 31, 2019 was so momentous that a service station in Benissa (Alicante) threw a public party to celebrate, and the fee was eliminated two hours early, at 22.00, so the toll workers could go home and see the New Year in.
At the same time, the fees were eradicated farther up the AP-7, from just north of Castellón to Tarragona.
Last year also saw tolls scrapped on the AP-4 between Sevilla and Cádiz.
Fees for motorway use started in November 2018, with the AP-1 between Burgos and Armiñón, and by next month, the central government will have eliminated the charges for using a total of 1,029 kilometres of motorway.
Motorways that still have tolls – for the moment, anyway
In many cases, it has already been announced that the fees will no longer apply once the existing toll franchise expires, although this is likely to be extended to the entire network eventually.
The AP-46 from Málaga to Alto de las Pedrizas; the AP-7 from Málaga to Estepona, and from Estepona to Guadiaro, all in Andalucía, still carry a charge.
Tolls are still in place in Castilla y León on the Ávila interchange between the AP-51 and AP-6; the AP-61 and AP-6 interchange at Segovia; the AP-6 from Villalba to Adanero via Villacastín; the AP-71 from León to Astorga; and the AP-66 from Campomanes to León.
Now, the only toll road in the Comunidad Valenciana is at its southern exit, on the AP-7 from Alicante to Cartagena (Murcia Region); although this can be avoided by taking the A-31 instead.
Part of Aragón's last-remaining toll roads is on the AP-68 from Zaragoza as far as Bilbao in the Basque Country.
In the far north-western region of Galicia, the AP-9 from Ferrol, one of its most northerly towns, right down to the northern border of Portugal carries a fee, as does the part of the AP-53 from Santiago de Compostela to Alto de Santo Domingo.
This said, whilst in some cases, it can cost as much as €2.20 to get from one motorway exit to the next, in many others, the tolls are a matter of a few cents and not high enough to put anyone off using them.
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