One in ten kilometers of road is in poor condition

The Spanish Road Association has recently published a study in which it concludes that one in every ten kilometers of road presents a very poor situation that is incompatible with safe and green mobility.

It is estimated that due to the poor state of conservation of Spanish roads, at least 25 million more tons of CO2 have been released into the atmosphere in the last ten years.

The study shows that the lack of conservation is taking a toll on Spanish road infrastructures, a heritage valued at 215,000 million euros, and that, as of 2009, it has suffered greatly from successive and repeated adjustments in public budgets.

For the network dependent on the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, between 2009 and 2019 the resources allocated to conservation and road safety were reduced by 76%.

This would explain the fact that, of the 100,000 kilometers of roads represented in the sample audited by the AEC, a total of 10,000 show serious deterioration in more than 50% of the pavement surface.

One of the most significant conclusions of the study is that the severe deterioration of the pavement reaches the rating of «poor», a few points from «very poor».

The report also highlights the need to renew 104,000 code signals on the State network, which would mean an investment of 39 million euros. About 75,000 signs are over the age of seven years, the warranty period given by manufacturers for retroreflective sheeting. Which means that, although during the day the signal is seen correctly at night, its correct visualization is not guaranteed.

On the other hand, in the Autonomous network it would be necessary to change 270,000 signals, an investment of close to 59 million euros. For this network, the signs with retroreflective material with expired material would be around 195,000 units.
If you want to know all the data in this report, you can download it here (available only in Spanish).