Óscar Izquierdo, president of Fepeco, the construction employers’ association in the province, is forceful in defense of the southern train, because “the Island needs it, the economy demands it and society requires it, that demands safe, fast, efficient, sustainable and certain mobility».
Izquierdo considers that “Tenerife is collapsed, stuck and immobilized, with permanent queues at all hours.” For this reason, it proposes to include this infrastructure in the Spanish Strategic Railway network, “an essential step”, so that the State Government and the Next Generation European funds “finance it”. Izquierdo believes that “there is no more time to lose”, after two decades of preparing the project. The leader of Fepeco states: “Tenerife can be left out of modernity if it is not done.” Izquierdo defends “guided, fast, innovative and environmentally efficient public transport, the great commitment of the EU”. He appreciates that noism, “which has done so much damage, has to go down in history.”
The business leader rejects the “ambiguity” of the political parties about the importance of the southern train and criticizes that they put their interests “above social welfare.” He argues that “some parties, with double standards, defend it with ardor and enthusiasm in Gran Canaria and try to paralyze it at all costs here.” Izquierdo thinks that “those who reject him on our Island are betraying Tenerife.”
The southern train, he summarizes, “will be a total transformation in mobility”, the path towards a “more sustainable, safe and reliable model”. With the help of new technologies to be more efficient, “as the tram from Santa Cruz to La Laguna meant in its day,” he points out. He concludes: “If in the council they reject the train from the south, they become responsible for the economic strangulation and social poverty in Tenerife».
