Spain puts 10.1-million-euro renovation of A-7 between Museros and Sagunto out to tender
Spain's Ministry of Transport has put out to tender a 10.1-million-euro renovation of 7.3 kilometres of the A-7 highway between Museros and Sagunto, a stretch used daily by thousands of Camp de Morvedre residents.
Thousands of drivers in Camp de Morvedre will notice roadworks in the coming months on one of their main routes to Valencia: Spain's Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility has opened a tender to renovate 7.3 kilometres of the A-7 highway between Museros and Sagunto, with a budget of 10.1 million euros, VAT included (8.34 million euros before tax). The project, run by the Directorate-General for Roads, will cross five different municipalities, and its final stretch falls within the municipality of Sagunto itself.
The affected route — from kilometre point 306.7 to 314 — passes through five towns: Museros, Rafelbunyol, el Puig, Puçol and, at its far end, Sagunto. Fully rehabilitating this stretch will take 30 months, a long timeline that reflects the scale of working on one of the roads linking the district with the Valencian capital without fully halting daily traffic.
This is more than a simple resurfacing job. Crews will strip nine centimetres off the current surface and lay two new layers on top — eight and three centimetres — leaving the road roughly two centimetres higher than it is now. Where damage has reached the deeper layers, crews will need to grind away an extra six centimetres before laying the new surface. The asphalt mix will also vary along the route: each section will get the material best suited to its level of wear, rather than a single solution applied across all 7.3 kilometres.
The viaduct near kilometre 306.7, between Sagunto and Puçol, is also part of the project: a reinforcement layer will be added there to stop cracks spreading into the new surface, while the deck's expansion joints will be replaced. Only once the road surface itself is finished will crews repaint the lane markings along the whole stretch.
Behind this specific project lies a much bigger plan: the Extraordinary Plan to improve surfaces on the State Road Network (Plan Extraordinario para la mejora de los firmes de la Red de Carreteras del Estado), backed by 1,629 million euros to update motorways and highways across Spain whose surfaces have reached the end of their useful life. It is no coincidence that this stretch is now in line for work: the A-7 corridor towards Sagunto is part of the same route as the so-called Valencia by-pass (Ramal Noroeste), a 28.6-kilometre stretch linking the Oliveral industrial estate with Sagunto that opened to traffic in 1990. With 36 years of uninterrupted use behind it, that stretch has built up wear that helps explain why it now needs deep rehabilitation.
The administrative process officially begins with the publication of the tender in the BOE, Spain's official state gazette. Companies wanting to bid for the contract have until 20 October to submit their offers; technical proposals will then be opened on 29 October, and financial offers on 19 November. When scoring each bid, price will carry the most weight — 54% of the total — followed by the technical proposal at 40%, and a final 6% tied to increased spending on quality testing. The Ministry had already flagged this project in mid-August, though its publication and bidding period have only now been formally opened.
This is no ordinary road for the district: it also carries much of the freight traffic serving Camp de Morvedre's industrial estates, from lorries linked to the ArcelorMittal Sagunto steelworks to Toyota Sagunt's logistics operations and, in the coming months, activity tied to the start-up of the PowerCo battery gigafactory. A worn-out road surface does not just inconvenience daily drivers; it also makes freight transport slower and more expensive, and much of the local economy depends on that transport. As a result, residents should notice a safer, better-maintained route to the Valencia metropolitan area in the medium term, although over the next 30 months they will have to live with roadworks and the lane closures typical of this kind of job on a busy road.
According to Valencia Plaza — Sagunto, with additional background from Wikipedia on the A-7 highway.