Monday, May 07, 2007

Just Another Day In Espelandia

I went to Madrid airport on Friday, on my way to London for the weekend. As usual I travelled by Metro to the stop inside Terminal 2 of the airport. Everything was much the same as on many similar trips I have made in the past. The difference this time was that leaving the Metro station at the airport has become just a little bit more complicated.

The story begins with the construction of the new Terminal 4 at the airport, which has now been open for a couple of years. The new terminal was built together with a Metro station, but without that annoying little detail of the tunnel and tracks needed for it to actually form part of the network. The government decided that this was the responsibility of Madrid's regional government, led by the esteemed Esperanza Aguirre, because the line terminates in what used to be the village of Barajas, beside the airport. Esperanza disagreed, and although it hurts me deeply to say so, I think she was probably right; if you can connect both halves of the new terminal underground, then why can it not be possible to at least put some sort of transport system in place between old and new terminals? Anyway, in the end Aguirre decided to take on the job but with a little twist; the extension to the new terminal would be built by a private company who would then have the rights to operate the line during a set period. Espe is by all accounts a keen admirer of Margaret Thatcher, and it shows.

So after two years in which there was no direct public transport link to the new terminal, we finally got the new section opened last week (it got inaugurated twice, but that just seems to be standard in these pre-election times). I was curious to see what the pricing policy was going to be, as there had been strong rumours that it was going to involve a different pricing policy to that used on the rest of Madrid's Metro. Sure enough, we were informed that the journey to Terminal 4 on the new section of line would cost 1 euro extra on top of the normal ticket price. That might not seem much to many of you who live outside of Spain, but a 10 journey ticket on the rest of the network only costs €6.40. So the price you pay to go to the new terminal is a little bit over 150% more than you would pay to go to Barajas "pueblo". So far much as expected, a hefty little price increase for the one extra section of tunnel that had been built, and a nice little earner for the companies that built it. Now, going back to where I started this post, I said I was getting off at Terminal 2; and the line to Terminal 2 was built using general taxation and has been open for several years. Well that won't do, and thankfully we have Esperanza to stop that sort of cheap transport nonsense, because it turns out that they are also charging users to to the old terminal a 1 euro supplement as well. Because the line goes through some stations where the supplement applies and others where it doesn't, they can only charge it on exit. Hence the chaos when I passed through on Friday as everyone wondered why they couldn't get through the barriers. Some people are just so ungrateful, they don't realise the obvious efficiency benefits of making people pay to enter the system, and then pay to get out of it again.

and this is where we keep those who can't afford to get out....



I don't know whether the extra money from Terminal 2 goes to the consortium who did nothing at all on that section of line except change the signs. Maybe it goes into the Comunidad's coffers so that they can then fund a lavish advertising campaign telling us how well they are running the Metro. Perhaps - and I can't resist the opportunity - it goes to pay Espe's heating bills in winter and thats why she turned down the money that was collected to help her. Presumably, her solution to this bizarre, chaotic mess will be to eventually privatize the whole lot. Another day in Espelandia.

3 comments:

Katie said...

madre mía. that's infuriating... and i always thought it was so wonderful to get to the airport with only one swipe of my bono de diez...

(one small correction, though: T4 opened just over a year ago--29 jan. 2006)

The Pillion Passenger said...

what about the bus? i was there a few weeks ago. arrived at T4 and got a free bus to nearest metro. it was quite handy. T4 is very nice as well, i must say.

please note: all of this is written from a dublin perspective where we have one shabby terminal and no metro!

Graeme said...

Well the bus was all we had until the Metro got connected, I guess they will probably remove it now that the terminals are finally connected. It was not very easy to turn up late at night and then have to wait for a bus that took you to the Metro if you were lucky enough to get there on time. It is a nice building....by airport standards.