The Seville-Cadiz motorway is such an unconventional project that its construction began without traffic demand and the work was completed eleven months earlier than expected.

 

Our interest arose when, in the Andalusia Film Archive, we found a copy of a promotional film made in 1970 by the Dragados construction company to show the innovations used in the motorway, which were considerable.

Among other things, it was the first time that computing was used to programme the work and control the costs.

At this visit, three of the engineers who were involved in the motorway’s construction explain what it is like and how it was built, so we will only tell you that it is 94 kilometres long and was opened to traffic in 1972. Some sequences of the film are included, when what they told us fitted with the Dragados production.

What remained unclear when we tried to document the motorway’s history was the reason why it was built; this was explained by a statement made by the Minister of Public Works in 1968, published in the ABC newspaper on April 3rd. He announced the construction of a toll motorway from Cadiz to Seville, designed to facilitate the transport of merchandise from a container port planned for the bay of Cadiz.

Indeed, a few months before this statement, in February 1968, a group of shipping companies had applied for the concession of a container port in Bajo de la Cabezuela (Puerto Real, Cadiz) with capacity for moving eight million tonnes of merchandise per year. The project was welcomed by the authorities, who knew that containers were the future of merchandise transport, but were also aware that the existing road would be insufficient for the traffic from the new port. It was calculated that “five of the eight million tonnes to be moved by the Cadiz container port would be re-exported  by sea, but the other three would have to cross the country, so a simultaneous study was commissioned of the concession for the construction and operation of a toll motorway between Cadiz and Seville, around 110 kilometres long”.

The motorway was built, but the port wasn’t. Its role was eventually assumed by the port of Algeciras, and the motorway was practically deserted for nearly twenty years until the gradual growth of the population’s standard of living and traffic made some sense of its existence. It now plays an essential role in two provinces with very active commercial and tourism development. In his visit to the site, Carlos Rodríguez tells how, in 1972, the people who worked the toll booths would applaud when they saw a vehicle, and how its traffic is now 24,500 vehicles/day.

The Seville-Cadiz motorway is such an unconventional project that its construction began without traffic demand and the work was completed eleven months earlier than expected. Our interest arose when, in the Andalusia Film Library, we found a copy of a promotional film made in 1970 by the Dragados construction company to show the innovations used in the motorway, which were considerable. Among other things, it was the first time that computing was used to programme the work and control the costs.

Three of the engineers who were involved in the motorway’s construction explain what it is like and how it was built, so we will only tell you that it is 94 kilometres long and was opened to traffic in 1972. Some sequences of the film are included, when what they told us fitted with the Dragados production.

What remained unclear when we tried to document the motorway’s history was the reason why it was built; this was explained by a statement made by the Minister of Public Works in 1968, published in theABC newspaper on April 3rd. He announced the construction of a toll motorway from Cadiz to Seville, designed to facilitate the transport of merchandise from a container port planned for the bay of Cadiz.

Indeed, a few months before this statement, in February 1968, a group of shipping companies had applied for the concession of a container port in Bajo de la Cabezuela (Puerto Real, Cadiz) with capacity for moving eight million tonnes of merchandise per year. The project was welcomed by the authorities, who knew that containers were the future of merchandise transport, but were also aware that the existing road would be insufficient for the traffic from the new port. It was calculated that “five of the eight million tonnes to be moved by the Cadiz container port would be re-exported  by sea, but the other three would have to cross the country, so a simultaneous study was commissioned of the concession for the construction and operation of a toll motorway between Cadiz and Seville, around 110 kilometres long”.

The motorway was built, but the port wasn’t. Its role was eventually assumed by the port of Algeciras, and the motorway was practically deserted for nearly twenty years until the gradual growth of the population’s standard of living and traffic made some sense of its existence. It now plays an essential role in two provinces with very active commercial and tourist development. In his visit to the site, Carlos Rodríguez tells how, in 1972, the people who worked the toll booths would applaud when they saw a vehicle, and how its traffic is now 24,500 vehicles/day.