The “Non-Integration” of the Railway Infrastructure in the Urban Agglomeration of Leon (Spain)

Abstract

The Railway Integration Societies (RIS) are public consortiums created in Spain at the beginning of the 21st Century. These societies were organized in thirteen Spanish cities to incorporate high-speed trains and reduce physical barriers due to conventional infrastructures. The research problem of this work is the failed railway integration project of the urban agglomeration of Leon. It was based on a tunnelling that would have been financed by the construction and sale of properties on the ground level, but this idea led to the crisis of the local RIS when the real estate bubble burst in 2008. The objective of this article is to examine the projects and actions of the case of Leon, in order to warn other middle-size cities facing railway challenges about bad management practices. Therefore, the article exposes the negative consequences of real estate speculation in the financing of public works. The research has a mixed methodological approach and uses several techniques to expand perspectives and make results more complex.