More than 100,000 drivers in the central region have been hearing for two decades about a major highway that would allow them to travel from one province to another without having to battle Madrid’s traffic jams every day. That almost mythical highway is technically known as the M-70, and for the first time in a long while, it’s more than just talk: funding has been secured, sections are already open, and there’s a timeline of concrete steps that bring it a little closer to becoming a reality.
The M-70 is not a new urban ring road right next to the capital, but ratheran outer super-ring road designed to encircle the Community of Madrid at a considerable distance. The design envisions it as a large pentagon of toll-free highways that would directly connect the six major national radial highways—A-1, A-2, A-3, A-4, A-5, and A-6—without vehicles having to approach the metropolitan area. This ring would pass through cities such as Ávila, Segovia, Guadalajara, Tarancón, Ocaña, Toledo, and Maqueda, becoming a sort of logistics belt around the center of the Iberian Peninsula.
Technically, the M-70 isn’t being built from scratch, but rather assembled by linking several existing highways and some new sections: the backbone would be the A-40, complemented by the AP-51 and AP-61 highways and the future A-28 (planned to connect Guadalajara and Cuenca, though not yet built). Each side of this pentagon would be formed by linked sections of these roads, so that the final result is a large, high-capacity outer ring road that is free to use.
The idea for this superhighway was first proposed in 2005, under the name “Madrid Outer Super Ring Road” or “Pentagon Project,” with the goal of facilitating travel between neighboring provinces and relieving pressure on the M-40, M-45, M-50, and the access roads to the capital. The 2008 economic crisis, cuts to public works, and other priority projects left the plan on the back burner for nearly twenty years, to the point that it became something of a pipe dream for many drivers who heard it mentioned but never saw it get off the ground.
During that time, progress was made on some isolated sections, such as parts of the A-40 or the junctions toward Segovia and Ávila via the AP-51 and AP-61, but without a clear overarching vision.
The major turning point comes with the decision to invest 240 million euros in the A-40 link between Toledo and Ocaña—a key section for closing out the southeastern side of that pentagon and one of the points that was most holding back the project. That investment, already committed by the Ministry of Transportation, means that for the first time there is a specific construction project directly linked to the dream of the super-ring road.
According to the latest data, the Segovia–Ávila connection is operational via the AP‑51 and AP‑61, and in December 2025, the contract for the design of a key spur within the Toledo–Ocaña section was awarded, setting the administrative wheels in motion for its construction. Furthermore, Castilla-La Mancha has politically reclaimed the term “M-70” by presenting this bypass of the A-40 as the catalyst for the entire project, pushing the issue back onto the national agenda.
The outlook is that 2026 will be a year of administrative progress and the start of construction work on this and other sections, so that, in the medium term, the ring can be completed in phases. There is no overall opening date—it won’t open all at once like a new highway—but a sequence of milestones is taking shape that, taken together, bring the M-70 closer to being more than just a headline.
