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The Generalitat will undertake the tram extension of the section of track between the Beniardá station and the Intermodal

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• Mazón says that before the end of 2025 the 6.2 kilometres of track between Benidorm and La Vila hospital will have been doubled and electrified
• The project also includes, at the request of the City Council, a new pedestrian walkway that will cross the road and connect the park and ride with the El Moralet park.

The Generalitat Valenciana, through the Ministry of Environment, Water, Infrastructure and Territory, has confirmed that it will carry out the tram extension of the section of track of just over a kilometre that runs between the Beniardá station and the Intermodal station in Benidorm. This is a request long demanded by the city, which has been attended to in order to be carried out while the project -which is already underway- of duplication and electrification of the track in the section between the Benidorm station and the hospital in La Vila Joiosa is carried out.

The Generalitat has decided to classify the section between PK 43+980 and PK 45+000 of Line 9, which corresponds to the aforementioned between Beniardá and the Intermodal station, as “tramway character”. In this way, the project for duplication and electrification of the track has already been approved to include a modification to assume the aforementioned tramwayization and to integrate it into the project itself.

For this reason, the President of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, was in Benidorm today to visit the works being carried out between the station and the hospital in La Vila Joiosa, which began last July and are scheduled to end in December of this year. The project has a budget of 39.5 million euros. Mazón was accompanied by the Minister of Environment, Water, Infrastructure and Territory, Vicente Martínez; the Mayor of Benidorm, Toni Pérez, the entire local government team and the Mayors of La Vila Joiosa and Finestrat, municipalities in whose areas the work is taking place.

Mazón has assured that the citizens of Marina Baixa “finally see realities” such as the modernisation of the tram line on the Benidorm-Finestrat and Vila Joiosa section and the tram connection between the Benidorm stations, “which meet the needs of a region that is an economic and tourist driving force of the Community”.

The head of the Consell has stressed that these works will allow for “a better service and an increase in the frequency of trains”. The works, he explained, will involve the construction of a new viaduct over the Murtal ravine, the rehabilitation of the Cala de Finestrat and Terra Mítica stops, as well as access to the regional hospital. At the request of Benidorm City Council, a pedestrian walkway will be built that will cross the railway line and connect the park-and-ride with El Moralet park.

In addition, new railway security and communications facilities will be installed and existing ones will be adapted. Work will also be carried out on the energy substations to meet the new network requirements and to update obsolete electrical equipment.
The work, however, will require cutting off railway traffic for three and a half months on the section between Hospital Vila and Benidorm, for which an alternative bus service will be established on this section from 28 January. The cut will be made once the railway service has been restored on the entire Line 9 (Benidorm-Dénia) and a substitute bus service will be enabled between Creueta and Benidorm.

After the visit, Mayor Toni Pérez stressed that “we have gone from the fiction of announcements to the reality of facts and this required political will and determination”. Pérez has become the spokesperson for the mayors of La Vila Joiosa and Finestrat, “three mayors concerned about the lack of investment in this region to connect our public health centre with population centres”. The mayor has stated that it is “a fundamental connection” in reference to the duplication of the tram line between Benidorm and the hospital. “We have been working on it for a long time, but nobody listened to us until the arrival of the government of Carlos Mazón” he added.

In his opinion, this work will allow for “better mobility” and that is why he has stressed that “European funds are now a reality and will make it possible for the project to be completed on 31 December this year and connect the inhabitants of the region with the hospital”. 

On the other hand, the mayor recalled that years ago we “lost” the connectivity of Tram Line 9, “which was incomprehensibly skewed and now it will return and the train that linked our towns will make sense again.”

For his part, the councillor Vicente Martínez Mus praised the three mayors present “who have been very demanding”, which has led his department to “not waste a minute” and to try to “improve the work as it is carried out”. Martínez said that this work “required attitude and we have had it”.

Finally, the President of the Generalitat has said that carrying out the duplication and electrification of the track is “the prelude to improving frequencies” and has highlighted the fact that “we are here to talk about works that are being carried out, not announced. We are talking about investments that have been waiting for nine years and that now have a real budget.” 

Mazón concluded by saying that the tram connection to the intermodal station “is in the planning stages” and he promised that it will become a reality. He also assured that this tram connection “is also the prelude to the other one we are already working on, which is the complete tram connection to Denia”.