Summary - TST 12

TRANSPORTES, SERVICIOS Y TELECOMUNICACIONES


TST 12

Inmaculada Aguilar Civera
Valencia y los enlaces ferroviarios. La visión renovadora de la ciudad del ingeniero Vicente Pichó

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Key words: Valencia; history of the railway; railway links; metro.

[ Abstract ]

In 1934, the industrial engineer Vicente Pichó (1879-1956) presented and published a Report, as senior municipal engineer of Valencia City Council, entitled “The Problem of Level Crossings in the Municipal District of Valencia”. An ambitious plan to articulate the city’s railway network, remove barriers and improve the fluidity of traffic; aims that would be achieved by relocating all the stations, constructing a metro system, opening up new roads and developing numerous tracts of land which would be obtained through deallocation of their railway use. Pichó’s project is set within the context of the Ministry of Public Work’s railway policy during the Second Republic, and specifically in relation to the “Railway Links” projects. These projects were the direct consequence of the socioeconomic, environmental and urban development-territorial effects of the implementation of the railway in the second half of the 19th century and its huge impact on the city; a problem which has evolved alongside urban development, technological development and the history of railway companies. Pichó’s project and his modernizing vision of the city is the reference point for the analysis of this problem in the city of Valencia, from its origin in 1852 until the new public transport proposals of the 21st century.