Work on Avenida de la Aviación Española, San Javier’s main urban artery, will begin in mid-October to include drainage infrastructures and give it a new face. The ICA Proyectos studio has planned fewer parking spaces, as they will change from the current battery to an in-line layout, and narrower traffic lanes “so that road traffic will no longer be the protagonist, inviting pedestrians to recover the public space”. The paving of the pavements will be at the same level as the road and will include new signage and steel bollards to moderate traffic. “The work will be used to install a separate rainwater network, which has not existed until now and which will channel the water collected by the network of scuppers along the avenue,” Ruiz points out.
One of the differentiating elements of the new image of the avenue will be 270 trees, which will provide areas of shade and colour, as oaks with orange blossom will alternate with reddish-leaved plum trees with white blossom, privet and a type of hackberry with toothed leaves. The avenue will also have two chargers for electric cars and the traffic lights, containers and post boxes will be replaced.
The mayor of Public Services expects the work to be finished in June 2022, two months after the planned completion of the remodelling of the Almansa park and the covered theatre. “It will be carried out in sections and an alternative route for traffic will be provided, but it is a work, but if we don’t do it, we will be left with a degraded avenue,” she says. The businessman disagrees with the project “in the reduction of parking spaces, in the design and in the quality of the work, because the first phase is already full of potholes”. “There are no alternative car parks, as in other municipalities, and the inconvenience of the work may cause customers to look for other places to go”, the businessman asks.
