In the summer season, many Asturians try to combat the heat as soon as it gets too hot in the Natural Paradise with a good dip in the Cantabrian coast. The Principality of Asturias has more than 200 beaches, but when it comes to reaching them, the main access routes are limited if we do not want the trip to take too long. Whether we head west or east, the regional and national roads lead at some point to the Autovía del Cantábrico or A-8 (also known as European Route E-70) and this is where patience is put to the test. There are several points of conflict in which the traffic jams can be kilometers long if we combine three factors:
- Good weather: fundamental factor and perhaps the most complicated to predict.
- Day: weekend or holiday.
- Time: we have studied the peak hour of the outbound and return using TomTom.
If we add to these three factors the fact that the season with the highest number of road works is from May to September, we have all the necessary elements to collapse the road traffic.
There are several points on the route that goes from the center of Asturias to the east where the traffic jams are very noticeable. The first of them is the PK 356 downhill (towards Cantabria) of the A-8. In this section the average peak hour during the summer is from 12:00 to 15:00. At this point, traffic from the Autovía del Cantábrico itself and from the Carretera Nacional 632 towards Oviedo converge. In addition to this, a few kilometers ahead is the Villaviciosa estuary tunnel, which has a radar device at 90km/h and in this scenario, the minimum separation distance between vehicles is not kept.
The same happens in the Oviedo direction at the same KP at the peak return time, from 19:00 to 21:00. In this case, a few meters from the tunnel exit (also with radar at 90km/h) and with a long upward slope, a new lane on the left is born, which is closed to traffic at the request of the City Council of Villaviciosa to “avoid crossing vehicles between lanes”. Parallel to this lane, on the right side there is an acceleration lane (traffic coming from the N-632). All these elements in synergy make traffic jams a tedious problem. The nearest gauging station (O-330-0) has been consulted and, as can be seen in the following image, the total number of vehicles in July and August is double the traffic of months such as January or February.
Table 1: Data gauging station O-330-0 of 2019. Road: A-8 PK: 341,4 Type: Highway.
Table 1: Data gauging station O-330-0 of 2019. Road: A-8 PK: 341,4 Type: Highway.A possible improvement option in the upstream direction, both in terms of the traffic jams generated and the environmental impact of hundreds of cars stopped for – hopefully – less than an hour, is to enable the third left lane mentioned above.
The main origin/destination trips on this route have been studied. Mostly, the origin is from Oviedo/Gijón, and the chosen destination is Rodiles beach. After the study, high traffic data were obtained on the VV-6 road, with long queues forming at the Riañu junction, which is also very unsafe for cyclists. Given that the bulk of the traffic comes from the A-8, one solution would be to eliminate the yield on the local road VV-6 and place a traffic circle instead of the current network of junctions. This would help to improve the level of service which is currently F (in the months of July and August) to a more favorable level of service and avoid to a large extent, traffic congestion.
Intersection between roads N-623 and VV-6.
Intersection between roads N-623 and VV-6.
Simulation of current summer traffic
Simulation of current summer trafficIt is striking not only that during the aforementioned months the intensity of movements at the intersection increases, but also that the traffic flows are the opposite of those during the rest of the year, when the N-623 national road receives a greater number of vehicles than the VV-6 road. It should be noted that there is public transport from Villaviciosa to Rodiles beach. Encouraging it would contribute the necessary grain of sand to preserve the area and the green Natural Paradise.
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