A lot of excitement, anticipation, and some incidents and delays have marked the arrival of the metro this Friday at the ‘ground zero’, eight months after the storm that hit the province of Valencia disrupted the service.
«It was very much needed,» exclaims Amparo, before taking the metro at Torrent Avinguda Station. More than 500 people were needed to repair the 50 kilometers and 20 stations damaged by the flood on October 29 in the València Sud-Castelló section, in the regions of l’Horta Sud and la Ribera.
The lack of railway circulation was replaced by a shuttle service with stops at València Sud and Safranar, which closed this Friday. «It was really necessary for it to come back, because with the shuttle, it took me an hour to get to work in Valencia, and with the metro, I’m there in 20 minutes; I’ve saved a lot of time, I’m very happy, I want to try it out,» says this resident.
Like her, all users agree on the need for the metro to return, especially those who must travel for work or studies every day. «It was about time,» emphasizes Paloma, who took almost two hours in total to get to her workplace in the center of Valencia.
The reopening has generated a lot of excitement among the residents. Abraham, already retired, is one of those who came to see the service’s reopening. «I went out to buy bread and came to see if it works because the TV said it was already running, but I don’t trust anything and wanted to check because we have to go to Mislata,» he says very pleased, as with the shuttle «there was a lot of crowding, and the bus took a long route because the bridge that connects Alaquàs with Torrent is still not operational, and taking the private car was chaos.»
The resumption of service also benefits those residents who need to travel to the ‘cap i casal’ for shopping to carry out errands, like Carmen who had to go to the Ciudad de la Justicia, or with her big suitcase was leaving for a train journey and saved on taking a taxi. «Seeing that it was already working, we take the metro, which is much faster,» explains Luisa.
The Conseller of Environment, Infrastructure, and Territory, Vicente Martínez Mus, has appeared at this Torrent station, along with Mayor Amparo Folgado, one of the towns that «will notice the most change.»
SOME INCIDENTS
«Today is really a very good day, I was looking forward to this normality,» says the Conseller, although not without some incidents, «something normal» considering that «practically the 50 kilometers have been completely renovated in all its elements, tracks, overhead lines, infrastructure, superstructure, which is as they say, all the installation that goes under the track.»
Miguel, a Metrovalencia worker, confirms that «people are very excited to be able to take the metro as they should after a very complicated few months.» The southern section of Metrovalencia attracts seven million users per year.
Among some of the incidents recorded in its new start-up are faults in the ticket machines. «Like any machinery that has been stopped for so many months, it will have its little problems, it’s normal, and other stations have new or relocated validators, but they will be resolved, and we have also added reinforcement staff,» the Conseller stated.
DELAYS
The metro also runs a bit slower than usual. «It goes very slowly at certain stops and stopped just before the Torrent stop,» says María as she gets off. Additionally, she adds that «at València Sud, they inform that it’s the last stop, and people got off scared, and at Safranar there is a lot of confusion with people who didn’t know if they had to take the shuttle because there were three buses stopped from the usual ones.»
From the Conselleria, they explain that these timing discrepancies will be resolved in the coming days and are a consequence of the fact that the Valencia Sud control center is still under reconstruction and is operating from the provisional control center located at the Machado workshops, generating «a situation of interim that may cause some delays of seconds or minutes due to technical issues.»
