The work on the new Taurito tunnel that will allow the GC-500 to reopen will go out to tender next year

 

The Department of Public Works, Transport and Housing of the Government of the Canary Islands, directed by Sebastián Franquis, and the Department of Public Works, Infrastructure, Transport and Mobility of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, directed by Miguel Ángel Pérez del Pino, have agreed to launch next year the tender for the new connection between Taurito and Playa de Mogán through the construction of a tunnel of more than 300 meters, and in this way recover the direct connectivity lost five years ago when the landslides on the GC-500 They made the section of this road that connects both towns unusable.

 

This initiative will be taken at the request of the Department of Public Works, Infrastructure, Transport and Mobility of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria which, in a motion that is brought to the plenary session of the island corporation this Friday, requests the Government to prioritize the execution of the solution to the GC-500, a key highway for the connectivity of the Island. The two administrations plan to close this agreement after the approval of the motion and Minister Franquis confirms to his counterpart in the Cabildo that the budgets are expected to of the Autonomous Community of 2023, which will be approved next month, will include a first batch of nearly five million euros to face this project.

 

This initial allocation for this work, which is budgeted at around 13 million euros, which will be included in the budget project of the Autonomous Community, comes from a contribution of 5 million euros of own funds from the Cabildo of Gran Canaria that this institution transferred to the Regional Government through an agreement signed in 2015 to carry out the works of the first phase of the La Aldea highway, at that time affected by the cuts of the central Government of the PP to the Highway Agreement. Finally, that item was not executed so now that money, at the request of the Department of Public Works of the Gran Canaria Cabildo, is being incorporated into the work of the new Taurito tunnel, a work considered essential to guarantee the full connectivity of the coastal towns of the municipality of Mogán.

 

The action of this project on the GC-500 will cover a total of 870 meters to execute a tunnel that connects Playa de Mogán with Taurito and, in turn, carry out conditioning of the accesses to this tunnel. The tunnel will have a length of 313 meters, with one lane in each direction that will allow road users to move around the section of the old GC-500 route that ran along the coast and suffered constant landslides. The tunnel will run through the Cañada de Los Gatos mountain, where the archaeological area known by the same name is located.

 

This project has been drafted with the approval of the Historical Heritage Service of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria, which has approved its execution with conditions to safeguard the integrity of this Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC). This action will add conditioning to the current corridor, in a section of 510 meters, to widen the shoulders and ditches, thus allowing access to this new tunnel with greater visibility and safety. In addition to guaranteeing the protection of drivers, this new route will shorten the connection time between the tourist centers of Playa de Mogán and Taurito by 40%.

 

Currently, the conditions requested by the Cabildo's Heritage are being added to the project in order to immediately request a simplified environmental impact declaration for the project. It is expected that all these procedures will be completed within a year to technically approve the project and put it out to tender by the Department of Public Works, Transport and Housing of the regional government.

 

The budget is more than 13 million euros and the execution period, once the simplified environmental impact has been approved, will be 24 months.