Sagunto council pushes to extend Ojos Negros greenway to the port
Sagunto's city council approved a motion from Iniciativa Porteña to study extending the Ojos Negros greenway to Puerto de Sagunto, backed by PSOE, PP, Compromís and EU-Unides Podem; Vox abstained.
Puerto de Sagunto could, in the coming years, be connected on foot or by bicycle with inland Castellón and Teruel: Sagunto's city council approved a motion in September to revive the project that would extend the Ojos Negros greenway to the Sagunto coast, closing a route that today stops just short of its historic destination.
The proposal came from Iniciativa Porteña, defended by its spokesperson, Eduardo Márquez, and won backing from PSOE, PP, Iniciativa Porteña, Compromís per Sagunt and EU-Unides Podem; only Vox abstained. Compromís per Sagunt also added an amendment with a very specific goal: getting the Ministry of Transport to allow bicycles on buses connecting Sagunto and Teruel, so greenway use isn't interrupted while railway works continue in the area.
For now, the agreement translates into two administrative tasks. First, it asks the administrations involved — Sagunto City Council itself, the Valencian regional government (Generalitat) and the Valencia Provincial Council (Diputación), among others — to clarify who owns the land the route would cross, an essential first step before coordinating any further action. Second, it asks the Generalitat to set aside funding to design, build and develop the infrastructure.
The route has a very specific industrial history behind it: it began as a mining railway carrying iron ore extracted at Ojos Negros, in the Teruel area, to the blast furnaces at Puerto de Sagunto. Its conversion into a walking and cycling trail started in 2002, and it now covers 182.2 kilometres across Teruel, Castellón and Valencia — one of Spain's longest greenways — but the usable stretch currently stops at Albalat de Taronchers, still some distance from the sea. Closing that final gap to Puerto de Sagunto is exactly what the approved motion aims to achieve.
The text itself acknowledges that recreating the original route exactly is not straightforward after more than six decades of urban change, though it insists there are technically viable solutions that respect the corridor's history. Its backers point to the paradox at the heart of the issue: infrastructure designed to link mines with the coast has never actually reached that coast in practice.
Among the arguments the motion raises is the economic impact of completing the route: more sustainable tourism, activity for bars, shops and bike rental, and a chance for Puerto de Sagunto to strengthen an identity tied to its mining and steelmaking past. In fact, if the project moves forward, the route would pass close to landmarks such as the Alto Horno (former blast furnace) or the old Grau Vell area, linking industrial memory with the current tourism offer. Groups that backed the text also recalled that residents' associations and cycle-tourism groups have spent years calling for exactly this connection, aware that the already-operational route links inland towns with the coast without yet actually reaching it.
Pushing this cycling connection forward also fits with the municipality's broader shift towards more sustainable mobility, running alongside the industrial transformation under way in Puerto de Sagunto as new plants tied to electric vehicles arrive. A greenway that finally reached the coast would add another argument for those pushing for local tourism and an economy less dependent on cars, and would fit with other active-mobility initiatives the council has been rolling out in recent years.
For now, there is no timeline or fixed budget on the table: everything hinges on first resolving who owns the affected land. That joint analysis between the three levels of government involved will determine when — and how — the greenway finally reaches Puerto de Sagunto. According to Sagunto City Council and elperiodic.com, with additional background from Wikipedia on the Ojos Negros greenway.