The Governing Board of City Hall of Santa Cruzchaired by the mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, yesterday approved the contracting for the drafting of the project, construction management and health and safety coordination for the work to create a personal mobility network in the center of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, with parking spaces and electric charging points for Personal Mobility Vehicles (VMP) and bicycles, with a base bidding budget of 61,311 euros and an execution period of three months.
A project that will involve creating 250 car parks of this type in the Interchange and the Maritime Park, and another 120 spaces distributed throughout the center of the capital, coinciding with the future low-emissions zone. To this will be added 41 charging points.
Bermúdez states that “this initiative is based on the aid program for municipalities for the implementation of low-emission zones and the digital and sustainable transformation of urban transport.” Likewise, he adds that “this is contemplated within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, inserted, in addition, as an important chapter within the European financing of the Next Generation funds”.
Likewise, the mayor maintains, “the main objective is the modal change from private vehicles to non-polluting VMPs, for which we hope that this will lead to a significant reduction in gas and noise emissions, which will improve safety and the urban environment” and adds that “this initiative is supported by the Covenant of Mayors in terms of emission reduction and a reduction in traffic in the center of 5% per year is expected.”
For his part, Carlos Tarife, Councilor for Public Services, understands that “the objective has been to propose a proposal that involves the minimum of civil works and the inclusion of at least 30 streets where the different modes of transport coexist, all with the intention of that generates an evaporation effect of the traffic inside the city”.
This network takes advantage of the already existing coastal bike lane, interconnecting it with the main strategic nodes through agile, comfortable and safe routes through roads adapted for VMP in a non-segregated way in those streets that have a single lane in each direction for the Road Traffic.
To do this, horizontal and vertical signage, traffic lights, differentiated pavements, as well as a video surveillance system at points of interest will be used. In some sections and intersections, segregated lanes will be created in accordance with the recommendations for cycling infrastructure projects, so that the minimum quality requirements are met.
In terms of infrastructure, two nodal parking centers for bicycles and personal mobility vehicles will be created. These will have video surveillance systems and registered user access to guarantee security. One will be located in the Interchange and the other in the Maritime Park park and ride. These will initially have 250 parking spaces and at least 25 electric charging points.
Additionally, at distances of less than 400 metres, four mini-parking centers with an average of 20 spaces each will be located along the existing bike lane. These will be configured to achieve convenient access to the cyclable network that connects the poles of attraction or strategic nodes. And with the same distance pattern, another four mini-parking centers (10 spaces each) will be located at the nodes of the cycling network.
This will make a total of 120 more spaces to facilitate parking in the city center. Of these, 16 recharging points connected to the lighting network will be installed distributed.
