Often voices against the AVE are raised in Extremadura, trying to keep Extremadura out of the high-speed Iberian network as the only excluded region.
It is intended to support this argument with ideological approaches, with manipulated data and hiding much of the reality of the Madrid-Lisbon High-Speed Line.
The AVE is inalienable.
1º.- This is not a specific train, our request, but a modern railway infrastructure, which allows AVE to circulate, but at the same time a high density of other trains with security such as Alvia, Avant, Altaria, Regional, Cercanías, Mercancias or Tourist. The network that is being built, and that we must ensure that it is completed with the utmost urgency, is a mix of passengers and goods. To say otherwise is to lie.
2º.- The Iberian Southwest Corridor line is the Madrid-Lisbon High-Speed line, approved as a priority in the programs of the European Union as an internal branch of the Atlantic Corridor and the Atlantic-Mediterranean Corridor. It is mixed passenger-goods. The connection of Lisbon / Sines with Madrid allows it to acquire a high traffic density in the medium term, which Extremadura can take advantage of both for the number of daily services and for the distribution of its infrastructure and operating costs. Not making it high-speed between Madrid and Lisbon, with a distance of 600 km, would prevent it from being used with intensity (eg Seville-Madrid there are 30 trains a day), traffic that would detour through Salamanca or go by plane, avoiding Extremadura. Not doing it at high speed would perpetuate the isolation of Extremadura.
3º.- Once the entire high-speed network in Spain has been built, claiming that it is an expensive infrastructure that of Extremadura being the only one in question, does not avoid any expense, either for Extremadurans or for Spain. The Extremadura line is the least expensive of the Iberian network, and less of what remains. Not doing it at High Speed would hardly reduce the investment and if it would decrease the density capacity of later use and would increase the costs of its operation as the only differentiated long-distance line with other technology, we do not know which one is being proposed.
Pronouncing against High Speed in Extremadura is an irresponsibility that we hope will have little echo.
