Well arrived on holiday and can say so far roads are pretty good. went from airport to Playa del Ingles and road was motorway three lanes all the way. Some drop offs at other hotels on way revealed what appears to be the main road running aprallel to the motorway that was probably a precursor to the motorway. Theres some construction works ongoing at present for new junctions on the motorway and some of the sections look pretty impressive - like tunnels on the southern section that remind me of southern france

For such a small island it does have a high number of GSJ's. I wonder if it has more, than say, the whole of Wales?

It probably has. The island is probably only about the size of Hampshire, at most, but it's probably got more road tunnels than the whole of Great Britain. Every time I visit the road network looks a bit different too, whether it be new roads, widening, realignmnent or just carriageway reconstruction and resurfacing. Even the best of maps are often out of date.

The main motorway, the GC-1, is to be extended further around the south of the island in the coming years. When I first visited the island in 1996 the first two pairs of tunnels had been constructed, taking the motorway as far as Arguineguin. Then, a few years ago, a heavily tunnelled section opened up taking the motorway east of Puerto Rico, bypassing the first of the coast-clinging S2 sections of old main road. The motorway extension east of Puerto Rico also included an S2 tunnel to channel traffic straight from the motorway into the north of town, rather than having to go a slightly longer route around the old coast road. Not only does that additional tunnel speed things up for people coming off the motorway, but it also means that if the old coast road needs closing for repairs then it won't cause too much of a problem. When the next extension opens, which will be heavily tunnelled and take the motorway as far as Puerto de Mogan, the additional tunnel will be an even more important link.

How things have changed. Since the 1990s they have just gone crazy for tunnelling. They're not afraid of huge viaducts either. On one particular motorway on the island the road sometimes goes straight from tall viaduct to tunnel to tall viaduct to tunnel. It can cause confusion though. I tried directing my father onto a motorway that seemingly didn't exist. The motorway did exist, and it was underneath us without us realising. Even though we were right next to the terminal junction, we couldn't tell that the motorway existed, as even at its terminus where it surfaced it was hard to spot. So well hidden.

Yes after travelling further on the island can say that its a great place to be for anyone interested in roads....

There are some hair raising sections of road indeed, the old road that the GC-1 bypasses is one example 90 degree turns while chisled into a rock face. Good place to film a bond car cahse!

The GC-1 is very south of france in nature out of one tunnel across a viaduct and right into another tunnel.

Looking at the map and also google earth the layout of some of the junctions and some of the motorways shows some thought into how to blend the road into the landscape and such.

be interesting to see a line map of the motorway system as it stands with pictorical layout of the junctions. As I said for such a small island the road layout is something else.

Gav

Found some pictures on the net of the main north south motorway. The pictures start at the southern end of the motorway and work north. Sequentially.

I take it that the GC1 is going to be a Gran Canarian version of our M60 motorway then.

I can't see a motorway looping the entire island for a long long time. However, it's probably more likely than the A14 being upgraded to motorway or something. The GC-1 is already more adventurous than any motorway in Britain, with more grand scale tunnelling progressing. The GC-3 is a very adventurous motorway too. Previously, to get from the GC-2, serving the north coast, to the GC-1, serving the east and south coast, you had to drive through Las Palmas. Sorry, I might be misleading people here, you had to drive through a big tunnel under part of the city which linked directly to the GC-1, so not exactly London North or South Circular! The GC-3, apart from being tunnel after tall viaduct after tunnel after tall viaduct, also features a short double deck type section, whereby the local road runs elevated above the central reservation of the motorway between roundabouts that the motorway tunnels under. I've only done the trip once, and it was far too much to take in on one trip.

So much engineering, nicely compacted into an island the size of a county like Hampshire!