Impacts on the Social Cohesion of Mainland Spain’s Future Motorway and High-Speed Rail Networks

Abstract

A great expansion of the road and rail network is contemplated in the Infrastructure, Transport and Housing Plan (PITVI in Spanish), in order to achieve greater social cohesion in 2024 in Spain. For this reason, the aim of this study is to classify and to identify those municipalities that are going to improve or worsen their social cohesion. To achieve this goal, the municipalities were classified according to the degree of socioeconomic development, and their accessibility levels were determined before and after the construction of these infrastructures. Firstly, the socioeconomic classification demonstrates that there is predominance in the northern half of the peninsula in the most developed municipalities. Secondly, the accessibility levels show that the same center-peripheral models are going to be kept in the future. Finally, poorly-defined territorial patterns are obtained with respect to the positive or negative effects of new infrastructures on social cohesion. Therefore, it is possible to state that the construction plan is going to partially fulfill its aim, since a quarter of the population is going to be affected by a negative impact on socioeconomic development. As a consequence, people who live here are going to have major problems in achieving social cohesion.

How to Reach the Eurocities? A Retrospective Review of the Evolution Dynamics of Urban Planning and Management on the Iberian Peninsula Territories

“…In this regard, transport and infrastructure are necessary to achieve development. Good territorial accessibility, both between the cities that make up the Eurocity and between it and the rest of the cities, provides development opportunities [68,70,71]. In fact, the connectivity to sustain the movement between cities was demonstrated as a critical factor in the Eurocity Elvas-Badajoz [70].…”

“…Good territorial accessibility, both between the cities that make up the Eurocity and between it and the rest of the cities, provides development opportunities [68,70,71]. In fact, the connectivity to sustain the movement between cities was demonstrated as a critical factor in the Eurocity Elvas-Badajoz [70]. Even in Baiona-San Sebastián, an intermodal Euro-corridor has been developed, public transport has been strengthened, and private transport has been controlled.…”

Identifying Processes of Smart Planning, Governance and Management in European Border Cities. Learning from City-to-City Cooperation (C2C)

“…Thus, the cities data and services should not only be shared but also coordinated. In this regard, could be given the case of the Portuguese-Spanish Euro-city Elvas-Badajoz-Campo-Maior, where an infrastructure of accessibility and connectivity connects both territories with none border control, however, the lack of transportation coordination between these two cities leads that this accessibility is almost inexistent [61][62][63]. By the other hand, there are also successful cases where data sharing and services coordination works smoothly-i.e., the case of the cities of Geneve-Anemmase or Copenhagen-Malmo [7,63].…”

Main Problems of Railway Cross-Border Transport Between Poland, Germany and Czech Republic

“…Some adopted transport policies pay particular attention to territorial cohesion by means of different models of use and development [1] so as to get sustainable development. While the economic profitability and environmental impact of transport infrastructure were traditionally taken into account, territorial cohesion has now become an integral part of the deployment of new infrastructures or the improvement of existing ones [2].…”