The experts value that “these road infrastructures have been planned for decades in Tenerife to improve mobility and are essential” But they also clarify that “the problem is not solved only with infrastructures. And it has been growing due to the factors already mentioned, in addition to “the lack of a coordinated mobility policy between public administrations.”
José Luis Delgado, general director of Infrastructures of the Government of Canarias; Raquel Guanche, member of Urban Planning of the Official College of Architects; Luis Gutiérrez, vice dean of the College of Roads, Canals and Ports, and José Alberto León, insular director of Mobility of the Cabildo. This meeting of ideas was moderated by the coordinators of the Cycle, Rufino García and Jorge Bonnet.
Jose Luis Delgado.
States that mobility in Tenerife “is completely collapsed for different reasons”. One of them is “the relocation of jobs with respect to the usual place of residence” and the other is “the excessive concentration of work centers in the metropolitan area and the South”. This model can only work if it has “high-capacity fast roads that allow shorter travel times or if high-capacity collective transport is available for very long distances.” Rate: “We have made the mistake of using high-capacity roads practically as collector roads.” In addition, it points out that “the planning approved in 2005 in the regional Parliament, the Trans-Canarian Transport Network, has not been respected. In Tenerife, the projects have not been carried out and this has led us to the current collapse ».
Raquel Guanche.
Point out that the problem is that “in all families there are several cars and we use private transport.” The architect believes that “the dispersed model of the territory is totally rooted in our culture and joins a certain demonization of life in the city.” In addition to the “increase in inhabitants in recent decades and the significant increase in tourists, which represents doubling our population.” This population increase and the centralization of work and leisure places “are responsible for the current saturation of mobility.”
Luis Gutierrez.
States that the diagnosis of mobility on the Island is done: “We live in a total collapse.” The engineer indicates that, surely, Tenerife is “excessively populated” and has an “unparalleled” number of vehicles, about 700,000 on an island of 2,000 square kilometers. Regarding the mistakes made, he agrees to point out “the population dispersion and the urbanization model, which occupies practically the entire territory, and the concentration of destinations.” But, in addition, he insists that “there is a deficit in infrastructure and the ones we have are designed 30 years ago for traffic from 50 years ago.” It also points out the shortcomings in public transport, “especially large capacity.” For Gutiérrez, if Tenerife is compared with other islands, there is a lack of “policies that favor mobility, that risk restricting private traffic and benefiting public transport.” In addition, “if it takes the same time as the private vehicle, nobody is going to get on, except those who do not have a car.” He summarizes: “There is no planning between transport and spatial planning.”
José Alberto Léon.
Agrees that the Island suffers a “circulatory collapse” and he points out that part of the problem is in the occupation of the territory, since “Tenerife has almost become a scattered city, where you have to make very long trips from the place of residence to those of work, study or leisure”. He believes that this “has been done without order and with a model that makes management very complicated, especially of the public, which requires population densities to be efficient.” He commented that, although the planning has been done, the regional one since 2005 and the insular one since 2007, “practically nothing has been executed for 30 years.”
