In Madrid, there are things that no longer surprise anyone. The traffic at eight in the morning on the M-30, the queue at Retiro on a sunny Sunday, and that Cercanías gives a scare again. Last Friday, it was the turn of lines C-2, C-7, and C-8: the derailment of a freight train between Azuqueca de Henares and Guadalajara forced the suspension of services, leaving thousands of travellers stranded with a replacement bus as their only consolation. Nothing new under the sun.
The problem is not the derailment itself. Accidents happen, infrastructure fails, axles break. What is tiring —and has been tiring for years— is the feeling that no one is going to do anything different after it happens. That the incident will be resolved, a statement will be issued by Adif, and the following week everything will be exactly the same again.
Repair work extended through the night on Friday, with the expectation that it would be completed by Saturday morning. Meanwhile, workers from the Henares corridor learned once again that relying on the train to get to Madrid is a risky gamble. Many of them have been taking this gamble every day for years.
The Community of Madrid has been demanding that the central government clarify the real state of the Cercanías network. And they are right to demand it, even if it is uncomfortable to acknowledge coming from where it comes. Because Cercanías is state-run, it is state-funded, and it is state-neglected. The crowded platforms, chronic delays, and recurring incidents are not bad luck: they are the result of decades of insufficient investment in a network that connects hundreds of thousands of people to their jobs every morning.
What is truly irritating is the contrast. Madrid boasts this week of having gathered 53 startups at the Mobile World Congress, of attracting tech investment, of being a city of the future. And at the same time, the citizen of Alcalá, Torrejón, or Guadalajara continues to pray that the 7:45 train does not arrive twenty minutes late or, worse, does not show up at all.
A city that aspires to compete with London or Paris cannot afford to have its commuter network operate as if we were in the nineties. It is not an ideological issue. It is a matter of minimum standards. Public transport is not a luxury; it is the backbone of mobility for thousands of families who cannot afford another car, another pass, another alternative.
While the politicians of the moment pass the blame between Moncloa and Sol, there is someone on a platform in Azuqueca looking at their phone, arriving late to work, and thinking that they have been let down again.
As always.
You may also like
