Nueva Canarias regrets that the president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín, has decided to bet this week on carrying out major works on the island’s roads instead of undertaking the necessary improvements through the approval of the Insular Plan for Sustainable Mobility ( PIMS).
The Secretary of Territorial Implantation of NC, Valentín Correa, considers that the insular corporation “opts for a true contradiction, which is only justified because those who govern it have decided to prioritize electoral improvisation over the strategies endorsed by the technicians in a document that It represents a much more viable and effective roadmap”.
“Pedro Martín talks about making up for lost time, but the best way to do it is not by executing million-dollar works, which can last decades, without first having a master plan that regulates its guidelines. In fact, there are professional organizations that have already questioned, for example, the efficiency of the variant proposed for the TF-5 as it passes through La Laguna”, Correa remarked.
In the opinion of the canarian formation of progress “we cannot continue consuming more territory to encourage the use of private vehicles without having previously approved the PIMS, an important document that would establish technical solutions, socioeconomic priorities and strategies to follow.”
Correa stresses that “it makes no sense that the Parliament of the Canary Islands approved a Climate Change and Energy Transition Law just a few days ago if the Tenerife Cabildo continues to promote the use of private vehicles. The presentation of this ‘shock plan’ supposes a purely electoral strategy, since Pedro Martín prefers to opt for the big headlines in the media rather than defining more realistic solutions subject to criteria agreed with all the agents involved in mobility from the island of Tenerife”, he lamented.
In this sense, the Secretary of Territorial Implantation of NC misses “a clear and determined commitment to routes that favor the use of public land transport, such as taxis and buses, associated with a series of multimodal interchanges and dissuasive parking. The solutions provided by the Cabildo also do not contemplate the study of the possibility that the tram of the metropolitan area reaches the Los Rodeos airport or that it can connect with any of these interchanges.
Correa reiterates that collectivizing transport “is the most efficient way to reduce the rate of one vehicle per inhabitant, a ratio that we are dangerously close to in Tenerife and which means that, currently, there are more registered vehicles than people who can drive them ”.
Solutions
The canarian formation of progress understands that “a solution must be given to the historical and serious mobility problems of Tenerife, as well as the traffic jams on the TF-5, the TF-1 and the situation of abandonment suffered by Isla Baja, but All these measures must be based on a regulatory document, the PIMS, which distances us from the current policies of improvisation and the occurrences that are taken from the island corporation”.
“We defend the implementation of sustainable guided public transport –continued Correa– such as trains that connect the main population centers with priority infrastructures. This measure would favor the reduction of the unsustainable fleet of vehicles that the island has and, incidentally, would also reduce polluting emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
However, these actions “would be, right now, on a very distant horizon due to the absence of projects and financing, so it seems more reasonable, due to a matter of deadlines, technical and socioeconomic provisions, to bet on the promotion of exclusive lanes for buses and a network of multimodal interchanges that reduce the use of private vehicles”.
Lastly, Correa recalls that “promises such as those made by Pedro Martín this week have ended up becoming authentic toasts to the sun or, in the best of cases, ‘works of San Borondón’, which only appear coinciding with the proximity of the elections to end up disappearing after the passage of these. Something that, as is logical, only generates a deep disappointment towards the political class of the island among the citizens”.
