The Foundation said that governments use it as a lure that the TAV transports goods and that this reduces the number of trucks on the roads, but it is not true: “To bring packages and the like that can be carried on passenger trains yes,” but not much more. Subai Erakuntza has taken up the reasons and reports of several entities showing this lack of value:

“CEOE has insisted that the High-Speed Lines are not “reliable and appropriate for freight transport”. They have also criticised excessive expenditure on this infrastructure and have shown that the conventional freight line has been left unmaintained, and have therefore denounced it. Thus, for example, the Foundation for Applied Economic Studies (Fe), which has among its employers the Bank of Spain, states in its studies: “High Speed investment has reduced many investments in the development and maintenance of the conventional network.”

These kinds of tests have also reached some official agencies. Subai has set the case of the European Court of Auditors as an example, since the study carried out on the APR in the Spanish State has encountered serious problems: “cost overruns”, “excessive traffic forecasts”, “cost/benefit analysis miscarried out” and “not making a critical analysis of long-term sustainability”. Similar conclusions have been reached by the Independent Tax Liability Authority (AIREF). The supervisory body, established by the Government of the State, has specified that the economic profitability of the APR is “between nothing and a minimum”. It has therefore proposed increasing the costs of improving the current road and reducing investments in new high-speed lines.

In the opinion of the Foundation, in Navarra the TAV is “brick and concrete”: “The route was approved in 2004 and only for passenger transport. Thus, Development Advisor Anai Astiz explained at the time that some sections of the TAV in Navarre could not carry goods, because it had excessive slopes.” In 2017 the project was explained to the Board of Directors of the High-Speed Consortium of the Region of Pamplona, indicating that the connection of the Landaben polygon, for the traffic of goods, would be carried out using the Iberian wide lanes of the conventional train.

The Foundation has denounced that this is the way to create a double rail network: “The new TAV lines would only be used to transport long-distance and high-speed travellers. And the conventional train railways for freight transport and for the few remaining local passenger services.”

And all of this, “when the improvement of the current Navarre railway is easy, since almost all the infrastructure is ready to implement a second route without hardly any works. This would increase the capacity of our rail network to carry trains, both travel and freight.”

Mobility and train

The European Mobility Week has just passed and Subai Erakuntza denounces that no proposal has been made in Navarre to improve the railways. “The same applies to the Sustainable Mobility Master Plan for Navarra. The Government of Navarre will approve it shortly, and it does not seem that it will do any kind of action on the railways, not even indirectly.”

The Foundation says that you have to wager on the conventional train because that is the most sustainable means of transport: “It allows the transport of both goods and passengers, serving both the counties of Navarre and the long-distance ones to make commutes. It is therefore the only means of transport capable of removing cars and trucks from the roads.”

For all these reasons, Subai Erakuntza has asked the Parliament of Navarra to "plan" the new Basque railway policy. On the one hand, invest in improving the current rail network, improving passenger transport, especially in the vicinity, and increasing the share of rail freight. And, on the other hand, to put an end to the works of the TAV, “because they are an economic waste and an environmental disregard, and they will not serve to make the transport of Navarre more sustainable”.