Wednesday, 19 November 2025, 16:57
The frequent traffic jams on the Costa del Sol’s road network have prompted professionals from the provincial hotel sector in Malaga to urge administrations to take action and launch pending infrastructure projects. Unfinished plans, such as the northern access to the airport, the Costa del Sol train, the extension of the Cercanías service and measures to alleviate the collapse of the A-7 motorway, complicating traffic in Malaga, which, according to hoteliers, damages the province’s economic potential.
The association of hotel business owners of the Costa del Sol (Aehcos) has called for “greater involvement in and promotion of the various transport infrastructure projects pending in the province”. Aehcos president José Luque insists on the urgency of creating efficient infrastructure and urges administrations to improve existing roads, which will benefit both the business sector and residents.
Transport issues damage the Costa del Sol’s reputation. On the one hand, they generate traffic jams in which locals and tourists can be stuck for hours. On the other, they hinder the province’s “tourist potential and its capacity to attract investment”. Luque says that “the lack of adequate means of transport hinders access of human capital to places with a high employment offer”.
According to Aehcos, the Costa del Sol is one of the most internationally valued tourist destinations. It closed 2024 with nearly 14.4 million visitors, who generated an economic impact of around 21 billion euros and 140,000 jobs. “These figures are at odds with the deficits in terms of transport infrastructure in our province,” the association states.
Solutions
Aehcos urgently demands solutions to the congestion problems suffered by the province at various points: the western Costa del Sol and the accesses to Malaga city from Vélez-Málaga and Ricón de la Victoria. In addition, they warn that one of the projects that has been delayed for too long concerns the northern access to the airport, which was awarded in 2018, with a deadline of 36 months. However, the project was cancelled. This new access would connect the airport with the A-7 near Alhaurín de la Torre, as well as with the future new road west of Malaga designed to link the A-404 with the MA-401.
The list of pending and key actions includes the widening of the MA-20 between Malaga and Torremolinos, which, in principle, involves the creation of a third lane along some nine kilometres between these two coastal municipalities. The project for braided lanes and the reorganisation of accesses on the A-7 as it passes through Marbella is also in the drafting phase, both for the section between Hospital Costa del Sol and Río Real and for the stretch from El Rosario to Los Monteros, both in the direction of Algeciras.
As far as the eastern Costa del Sol is concerned, the project to modify the Caleta de Vélez half-link of the A-7 is still pending. The objective is to complete the link with acceleration and deceleration lanes, which would alleviate traffic jams on the A-44 during the tourist season, especially at weekends. According to Aehcos, the Ministry of Transport has provisionally approved the layout project and it will soon be subject to the public information procedure.
In addition, the mayors of coastal Malaga province are calling for the construction of a third lane on the A-7 to facilitate access to Malaga city from Vélez-Málaga and Rincón de la Victoria and from Puerto Banús and San Pedro Alcántara.
Luque says that, since 2018, four out of every ten kilometres of state motorways have become free of charge, while the toll on the AP7, as it passes through the western Costa del Sol, remains in force. For this reason, he urges the central government to secure investment and launch the coastal train project. The local Cercanías railway system requires expansion, both in terms of the frequency of trains and their capacity. Aehcos believes that this can be done by making adjustments to some stops and stations so that they can accommodate trains with greater capacity.
Luque speaks on behalf of the province when urging the central government to provide “efficient and decisive responses”. “At the moment, Spain is the country in the EU with the lowest level of execution of infrastructure financed by European funds, with 63% of the total allocated, behind Italy, with 70%. Portugal is at the top, with 100% of the total executed. The data shows that we are not doing our homework properly,” Luque has stated.
Where does the regional government of Andalucía stand?
The Junta’s de Andalucía’s regional minister of public works Rocío Díaz has advised Spain’s national minister of transport Óscar Puente to focus more on executing promised projects than on “making so many announcements”. She alluded to the delayed coastal train project, the high-speed AVE rail to Huelva and Faro, the railway connection between Santa Justa and San Pablo and the completion of the railway corridors through Andalucía. She criticised the Ministry of Transport’s plan to increase the speed of trains between Madrid and Barcelona, while the task of providing Andalusians with a more punctual railway system lags behind. “Pedro Sánchez’s government has achieved something unimaginable: that a reliable, exemplary and efficient system is out of control. We do not know what time we will arrive at our destination, while he wants to cover up incompetence with feasibility studies for projects that have neither a deadline nor a budget,” she stated.