Local and expats on the Costa del Sol are being forced to stay home to avoid getting caught up in ‘ridiculous’ traffic jams that have been branded a ‘total disaster’ for the region.
It follows days of serious jams along both the A-7 and the AP-7 toll road, during what is perhaps the busiest weekend of the year.
But while this weekend is expected to be more busy than usual, the traffic situation is notably worse throughout the year – with emergency service workers demanding ‘something be done.’
On Thursday evening, as the August 15 bank holiday weekend began, the main artery between Malaga and Marbella turned into a giant car park, as thousands of drivers were trapped in tailbacks stretching for up to 12km.
The DGT (Spain’s traffic authority) logged at least nine major jams on Thursday afternoon and evening, choking the A-7 and AP-7 motorways and the key access roads in Torremolinos, Benalmadena, and Mijas.
Authorities expect up to 315,000 journeys in Malaga province during the long weekend, with many crammed onto the same coastal strip.
By 10.30pm the worst jam, 12km long, was reported on the A-7 at Nueva Andalucia heading towards Cadiz.
On the nearby AP-7, traffic heading east towards Almería backed up for six kilometres. Both jams had started hours earlier, fuelled not only by the traditional exodus from the beaches but also by a perfect storm of big-ticket concerts.
In San Pedro de Alcantara, 30,000 people packed into Manuel Carrasco’s sold-out show at Oasis Marbella Fest, while Los Secretos played Starlite Occident nearby.
‘It’s ridiculous, it seems much worse this year,’ one British expat told the Spanish Eye.
‘I find myself staying home and not wanting to go anywhere for fear of being stuck in traffic for hours.’
Another expat, who lives in San Pedro de Alcantara, said things are only going to get worse due to a string of new developments being built along the town’s boulevard.
They said: ‘They are building hundreds of homes there, they are going to have their own car parks that will add to the already unbearable situation during the summer, it’s going to be chaos.’
One ambulance driver told @marbellasequeja that the traffic jams are putting patients’ lives at risk.
The worker shared a video with the community Instagram page, showing a severe traffic jam during the middle of the day last week.
They said: ‘The collapse now is normal, but it happens every day/almost every day.
‘Just the other day, we were transporting a patient in semi-critical condition and the convoy caught us on one of the worst days while we were driving the ambulance, and I’m really used to the usual mess on the coast.
‘The issue with the old 340 (A-7) has to be resolved one way or another because it impacts the time and money of workers, the tourism we rely on, the health and lives of patients transported in ambulances, and the rapid response of emergency services: firefighters, police, etc. This can’t continue like this.’
Concertgoers on Thursday night told Malaga Hoy that their usual 15-minute journey home took two hours, ‘even after paying the toll.’
Another driver described spending four hours crawling from Malaga to Marbella and back.
They added: ‘Between the luxury cars zooming past you at high speed and the sudden swerves you have to make due to the sudden merges, the journey is one of stress.’
Elsewhere, a car fire on the A-7 between Torremolinos and Benalmadena caused a seven-kilometre jam, while another blaze on the AP-7 in Torremolinos left three kilometres of tailbacks heading east.
Read more Andalucia news at the Spanish Eye.
