The President of the Council, Rosa Daviladid not hide his satisfaction at the first major coordination meeting to solve the traffic saturation suffered by the Island, the great problem of Tenerifeas recognized by Vice President of the Institution, Lope Afonso. And it is that the mobility macro-commission constituted this Monday, July 10, began by leading by example, and precisely mobilized sixty economic and social agents, professional associations, experts, city council representatives, University of La Lagunathe Confederation of Transport, of Entrepreneurs of Tenerife and even the General Directorate of Traffic.
A week after taking office as president of the Island Corporation, Rosa Dávila assumes the commitment that she already announced in the electoral campaign to end, mitigate, alleviate traffic jams and the collapse of traffic. The margin of reaction is established in the short, medium and long term.
Although the president did not want to propose concrete measures – “there are no magical solutions,” she warned -, among the alternatives proposed, In the short term, it is defended to stagger the incorporation to the jobs of both public administrations, hospitals, the University or schools, which could be carried out from seven to ten in the morning. It is also proposed to recover the old idea of, in collaboration with shopping centers or individuals in the North and South of Tenerife, setting up stops where users can leave their vehicles and go by express public transport or shuttle buses to Santa Cruz. “There is no exclusive solution, but the decisions entail the involvement of all and also advance in another series of joint measures.”
“The idea is now to address relatively simple solutions to alleviate the situation”
With an eye on the measures to alleviate the collapse in island traffic becoming a reality in October, we also Phasing the accesses and exits to the industrial estates will be studied, as well as regulating heavy transport, with an eye also to involve the acceleration and deceleration lanes in the solution.
Already in the medium term, the possibility of have some 2,700 taxis in Tenerife that can contribute to improving transport in those areas where buses of ten or twelve meters cannot pass, while in the long term the alternative for mobility to finish the infrastructures underway or planned, such as the roundabout of Padre Anchieta or the closure of the insular ring.
“Today is the first day, the first step in the search for solutions to definitively end traffic problems,” says Dávila, who recognizes the need to provide a response to avoid the incidence on the health of residents and visitors. of the Island, as well as collaborate in the fight against climate change and also overcome the impact on the economy in order to promote economic competitiveness.
Knowing both the importance of the measures and the eagerness of the interlocutors to discover how the Tenerife roads will be unblocked, Dávila assumes that she is leading the search for solutions knowing that there are no magic solutions.
Concrete actions
From there, the first objective achieved, bringing together the social and economic agents in this macro meeting. Everyone has a diagnosis and many even have their own solutions, now there is a lack of coordination from the Cabildo, and it is the challenge led by Rosa Dávila.
“The solution must necessarily go through dividing the schedules”
Until a new meeting in September of the mobility table set up yesterday, Four teams or work commissions have been set up to explore concrete solutions in terms of decentralization of services, identify the black spots on the roads of Tenerife to address it so that the retentions, traffic, investment in roads and transit and staggering are not so great of heavy vehicles and access to the University. Regarding this institution, Rosa Dávila thanked the ULL for putting its Mobility Plan on the table and the measures they have planned to discourage users. Among the actions of the first research center of Canary Islands, Rosa Marina, director of the Department of Economics and Mobility, admitted that time division and parking management are being contemplated, which will establish a distinction between those students who come from privileged areas that have collective public transport such as the bus or the tram and those who come from areas of difficult access. “It is not the same to come to the University from the metropolitan area than from other municipalities on the island of Tenerife,” she said.
In this diagnosis already carried out by the ULL, progress is already being made in the Mobility Plan of the University of The lagoon. Among the specific measures, “discriminate based on the origins of the university community and who has preference for certain parking areas and who does not.”
The main objective that has been drawn from this first mobility table: to move from words to deeds, explained Dávila. And already in September there will be a new meeting to review the progress of the working groups.
“We will be able to respond to the problem if we go hand in hand with Tenerife society”
Another maxim was set by the vice president of the Cabildo and Minister of Tourism, Lope Afonso: “we can solve this problem if we go hand in hand with Tenerife society”, for which milestones were set to be achieved at different times of the calendar.
“We have offered to combine teleworking to delay the entry of cars”
Among the sixty experts and agents participating in the mobility macro-commission, Pedro Alfonso, president of CEOE, who recalled that “the same people who complain about the queue are also part of it.” With the satisfaction of the commitment led by Rosa Dávila, in the search for solutions counting on all sectors, Alfonso raised the need for the unions to also be incorporated in future meetings and advanced one of the recipes carried by the businessmen to alleviate the collapse: « We have offered to combine teleworking to try to delay the entry of cars into the areas where there is more conflict”, along with another formula to make the transport of the five million travelers who arrive on the island compatible and that he did not delve into details, more beyond investing in sustainable rental cars to achieve smart mobility. But he made it clear: “We are willing to study all the measures that are necessary, but it has to have short or very short-term measures that are easy as consequences.”
“In the short term, among the simplest measures, better management of the bus service”
Another of the participants in the council of wise men to solve the collapse in the traffic of Tenerife, Luis Pintor, dean of the College of Civil Engineers of the Tenerife province, It opted, in the short term, for simple measures, involving the agents related to mobility from a better management of the bus service, among other milestones. He considers the Mobility Plan developed by the Cabildo to be of vital importance, which not only includes the diagnosis and the problems, but also incorporates a package of solutions that must be ordered in time and in the economic aspect, vital to solve the collapse that affects the roads .
