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Barcelona studies a third Rodalies tunnel under the Diagonal to ease railway congestion
The recurring problems of Rodalies have brought back into focus an infrastructure that has appeared for years in studies and mobility plans: a third Rodalies tunnel under Barcelona. The proposal is to create a new corridor running through the city along the Diagonal to relieve pressure on the two tunnels that currently handle much of the metropolitan rail traffic.
Today, most Rodalies trains run through the tunnels at Plaça Catalunya y Passeig de Gràcia. When an incident occurs in either of them, the consequences quickly spread throughout the entire network. The creation of a third connection would allow services to be better distributed and increase the capacity of an infrastructure that has been operating at its limit for years.
Preliminary studies consider an alternative rail entry to Barcelona from Baix Llobregat, connecting municipalities such as Castelldefels, Gavà, Viladecans, Sant Boi or Cornellà with new strategic points within the city. This would make it possible to offer more routes and reduce dependence on the current corridors.
The initiative coincides with the new Estrategia Ferroviaria de Catalunya, which aims to diversify connections and improve the resilience of the network. Among the projects included is also the Línea Orbital Ferroviaria, designed to connect metropolitan cities without having to pass through the centro de Barcelona.
Experts believe that both actions could complement each other. While the orbital line would facilitate cross-county journeys, the third tunnel would allow more trains to be absorbed and reduce the impact of incidents that currently affect thousands of users every day.
For now, there is no concrete timetable for its construction. The infrastructure remains at the technical and economic analysis stage, as it would require a multi-million euro investment and complex works beneath one of Barcelona's main avenues. Even so, the growth in demand and Rodalies' capacity problems mean the proposal is gaining weight in future planning.
The Diagonal has historically been one of Barcelona's great axes of urban transformation. If the project is eventually realised, it could also become the backbone of a new era for metropolitan rail transport. Beyond the construction itself, the goal is simple: for daily journeys to be more reliable, for incidents to affect fewer users, and for Barcelona to have a network ready to keep growing over the coming decades.