The Town Hall of The lagoon works, from different areas, for the implementation in 2023 of the Low Emission Zones (ZBE) in three points of the municipality, the town center and the neighborhoods of San Honorato and Camino La Villa, as required by the Government’s Climate Change Law of Spain for municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants, in order to reduce pollution through traffic restrictions, among other measures.
One of those that the Laguna City Council is assessing is the implementation of the blue Zone on some roads in the town to control parking, such as Anchieta and Nava Grimón streets, although the Councilor for Sustainable Mobility, Rubens Ascanio, emphasized that the measure is part of “an initial proposal, a draft of actions, which makes us the technical team and that now it has to be agreed across the board and that we are going to have to work with the neighbors”. Therefore, “in some cases, the measures will be extended, in others they will be modified and in others they will be replaced.”
Even so, the mayor affirmed that the direction of all the measures goes towards “discouraging the use of private vehicles and reducing the number of cars that travel because, in addition, one of the main elements of contamination is the search for parking, due to the speed and time,” he argued.
Along these lines, the Councilor for the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change, José Luis Hernández, also added that the public must be aware that “the streets are a public space that must be managed rationally and must be measures that discourage taking your individual vehicle to come and park in the heart of La Laguna or Santa Cruz”. Even so, he emphasized that the City Council does not consider ZBEs as “only restrictions on access, circulation and parking, but we are talking about a rational management of public spaces.”
Likewise, Ascanio added that several measures are proposed for the town “that have to do with the elimination of streets that are currently used for vehicle traffic, such as the Camino Cañaveral, which will be pedestrianized.” In addition, the technical proposal includes making permanent the elimination of vehicle traffic on weekends in the last sections of Tabares de Cala and Herradores, the calming of traffic in the surroundings of the Plaza del Adelantado or the limitation of vehicle traffic on the street San Antonio – Hermanos Marrero and in the final section of Marqués de Celada street, as well as the improvement of public transport, among others.
Meanwhile, in the San Honorato neighborhood, the implementation of the green zone is being studied, which prioritizes parking for residents, and which has been requested by the residents themselves. Similarly, “it would be accompanied by an underground car park in San Lázaro, with a green area on the surface, and managed by Muvisa,” said José Luis Hernández. In addition to measures to reorganize and calm traffic to avoid excessive circulation through the enclave or the improvement of public transport connections, among others. Actions that would also be applied in Camino La Villa, along with others specific to the school environment in the area.
Regarding how to make the traffic limitation effective at these three points, the councilors indicated that possible formulas are still being studied, although Ascanio pointed out that “we understand that the control of vehicle emission labels is the last measure. We cannot penalize people for their economic capacity”. “But we have to see everything technically and with the neighbors. Now it is a process where there will be consultation and active listening with the citizenry and it will try to find formulas that allow this process to be as consensual as possible”, Ascanio insisted.
Implementation in 2023
The mayor indicated that, once the measures are agreed, the idea is to implement them throughout the next year. At the same time that, in addition, work is being done on the new ordinance, although José Luis Hernández pointed out that “we are waiting for the Ministry to draw up its own that regulates all this, and until it is released, it is possible that we take some steps that will later be to rectify or complement”.
Even so, they highlighted the work carried out so far in other related aspects, such as the installation of photovoltaic panels, the cycling network, the public bicycle rental system or electric car charging points, among others.
