Avenida Portugal Boulevard

In 2003, the Madrid City Council decided to launch an ambitious urban redevelopment project by undergrounding one of the city's main ring roads: the M30.

Between 2003 and 2007, the work of burying the western arch of the M-30 in the area of the river was carried out, which made possible the elimination of surface traffic and the consequent liberation of more than fifty hectares of land previously occupied by roadways.

The Avenida Portugal Boulevard, included in the Madrid-Río project, this boulevard remodels a stretch of underground work, under a design inspired by the landscape of cherry blossoms that we can contemplate on our way to Portugal. Underneath this pedestrian walkway, between Alto de Extremadura and the San Vicente slope, there is a 1,480-meter-long, 19.50-meter-wide tunnel. It has eight lanes, four for each direction of traffic, each 3.5 meters wide, 75% of which is under cover.

One level above this subway road is a parking garage with a capacity of more than 1,000 vehicles, which frees the urban streets of a large number of parked cars. Elevators, emergency exits, ventilation system stacks, which emerge scattered above the boulevard, and a sufficient number of entrances and exits to the subway parking lot.

The exterior of the new avenue is articulated by a central promenade, characterized by its cobblestones, for which pieces of Portuguese tiles have been used, similar to those found on Avenida Liberdade in Lisbon. The paving reproduces the shapes of the cherry blossom, an allusion to the Jerte Valley in Extremadura, close to the route of the highway buried in this area. The benches, which serve as tree surrounds, also emulate these shapes. A total of 1,400 trees have been planted in the area, 700 of which are cherry trees. The avenue is complemented by two side lanes as a service road to provide access to the surrounding neighborhoods.