Are there roadworks or closures on the LZ-40 at present?

No. According to the information available, neither roadworks nor closures have been announced. There is also no tender for the widening.

When will the widening of the airport road start?

No start date has been given. PSOE deputy Marcos Bergaz expects works not to start before 2027.

How long is the planned widened section of the LZ-40?

According to the project documents it is 8.2 kilometres through Tías and San Bartolomé. The section runs from the airport junction past Matagorda to the urbanisations of Puerto del Carmen.

What will doubling the LZ-40 cost, and who pays?

The 2023 public consultation gives a tender value of €35,256,805.08. No split of the costs between the state and the Canaries has been published.

Who is responsible for the LZ-40?

The Canarian public works ministry plans the project, puts it out to tender and carries it out. The Cabildo of Lanzarote is a coordination partner.

Why does Tías want the road widened?

Tías points to heavy traffic and a high number of accidents on the LZ-40. According to the council, a central reservation would prevent head-on collisions.

Lanzarote LZ-40 road widening: only in budget since 2021

What changes for visitors on the way to the hotel?

For visitors, nothing changes for now. On 9 November 2026, the Ayuntamiento (town council) of Tías called on the Canarian government to put the LZ-40 widening out to tender.

The LZ-40, known as the “Carretera de las Playas”, is the main route from César Manrique-Lanzarote airport to Puerto del Carmen. According to the 2023 public consultation documents, it has one 3.5-metre lane in each direction.

Nothing has been put out to tender so far, Tías says, and no start date has been given. Nobody has announced closures or new traffic rules.

Anyone planning a transfer or hire car on this route need not allow for roadworks as things stand. There is no information on how traffic would be managed during later construction.

What does Tías demand, and how does the council justify it?

Tías wants the Canarian government to put the widening out to tender as soon as possible and then carry it out, according to its press release. The council calls the LZ-40 one of Lanzarote’s busiest roads, with some of the most accidents.

Tías says the route includes so-called Tramos de Concentración de Accidentes, meaning stretches with a high number of accidents. The council gave no figures for accidents or traffic volume.

A central reservation would remove the risk of head-on collisions, Tías argues. It calls the project “not simply more asphalt, but vital safety infrastructure”.

Mayor José Juan Cruz raised the danger of the LZ-40 as early as 11 March 2026, in a meeting with Jacobo Medina, the island councillor for roads at the Cabildo (island government). He pressed for a faster award and named no sums.

What exactly is planned, and what will the widening cost?

The widening would cover 8.2 kilometres through the municipalities of Tías and San Bartolomé, according to the project documents. It starts at the airport junction, runs past Matagorda and ends at the urbanisations of Puerto del Carmen.

The road would become an A-80 type expressway with two 3.5-metre lanes in each direction. The hard shoulder would measure 1 metre on the inside and 2.5 metres on the outside, against 1.5 metres at present.

The tender value is €35,256,805.08, according to the public consultation in the BOC (the Canarian official gazette). That consultation ran for 30 working days from 15 December 2023.

In 2026 the ministry spoke of a tender worth 30 million euros, and there is no current official figure. Who pays is open: the widening is part of the road agreement between the state and the Canaries, and no split has been published.

Why has the project dragged on since 2021?

In May 2021 the Canarian government gave the design work to the joint venture HSIA-Esteyco for €273,586, with twelve months to finish. At the time, tender and start of works were planned for 2022 and 2023.

A dual carriageway was already planned in 1986, but only a single carriageway was built in 1989. The then minister Sebastián Franquis said in 2021 that no road project had been carried out on Lanzarote since 2011.

In November 2025 the Canarian government’s environmental assessment came back positive. According to Mariano Zapata, the widening stays within the existing road corridor and does not touch protected land.

On 15 January 2026 the ministry told PSOE deputy Marcos Bergaz in writing that a tender was not possible before the fourth quarter of 2026. It allowed four months for the construction design.

Bergaz, from the opposition, expects works not to start before 2027, because a tender worth 30 million euros must run through its statutory deadlines. On 18 February 2026 Minister Pablo Rodríguez said the tender could go out once Transición Ecológica (the ecological transition department) agrees.

What does the Canarian budget say?

For 2027 the Canarian budget sets aside €5,109,639 for the LZ-40, according to Tías. In 2026 the sum was about a million euros lower, and nothing moved.

The 2025 budget carried the same sum as 2026, again with no tender or start of works. Budget lines for the road have existed since 2021, according to Tías.

The government announced tenders for the end of 2026, but Tías says nothing has become concrete so far. Mayor José Juan Cruz had said on 16 December 2023 that the file had been complete for six months.

What happens next?

According to Tías, the Canarian government still holds to a tender at the end of 2026. It gave neither an exact date nor a completion date.

No tender appears in the documents checked so far. Worth watching are the ministry’s announcement, the final approval of the construction project and a reply to the demand from Tías.

The environmental group Ecologistas en Acción rejects the doubling and calls it a botched job. The government counters that the widening takes no protected land.