“It’s mobility, stupid.” The phrase was not pronounced literally, but paraphrasing that advisor to Bill Clinton in reference to the economy, is worth summarizing yesterday’s plenary session convened at the request of the Socialist Group in the City Council. Tenerife.
The debate, which had the former president Pedro Martin as a battering ram, he focused on a single point on the agenda. It was about discern whether the then candidate of Canarian Coalition and current president, Rosa Davilahas fulfilled the promise made at the beginning of last July to “relieve in 90 days” the recurring traffic queues on the island’s roads., especially on the two highways. Government (CC-PP) and opposition (PSOE and Vox) showed totally divergent arguments from minute one, even about what Dávila really said or did not say.
Beyond the good words, especially from the vice president and leader of the Popular Party, Lope Afonso, political consensus is presumed very far away today and the only possible institutional agreement is the one that defines the collapse in traffic as the main current problem, or not so much, also depending on how you look at it.
If Afonso was conciliatory, the other vice president at the table, José Miguel Ruano (DC), He maintained a constant verbal confrontation, which always received a response, with Pedro Martín. Both were very belligerent and their different visions of the Regulations – allusions and the secretary’s intervention included – regarding who should speak for the PSOE and close the session occupied the beginning and end of the session with an hour and three quarters of difference. In the middle, a ping-pong match about what was done in the previous mandate by the PSOE government.Citizens and what was outlined by the current one in a hundred days. A sharing of the issue that has been the subject of the entire week in the Tenerife Cabildo. The third chapter after the balance of the president’s first three months and the response at a press conference from her predecessor in office.
Rosa Dávila defined it very well: “This is not the best day (yesterday) to talk about improvement in the queues with rain, fog and an accident in Guamasa.” However, she defended what has been done since July as measures that “had to be taken now” and that have helped to achieve this “relief” in the form of “less time for people in lines.” The president used orographic or demographic arguments – one million inhabitants on the Island – to explain a problem that is not current. Dávila pointed out that “we are not opposed, like the PSOE, to everything that sounds like CC to good projects like the Mobility Plan, we assume them and maintain them.”
Pedro Martín stated that he was willing to “support good initiatives” but described the majority as “occurrences and sensations” of those who “do not travel through the TF-5 or TF-1 every day.” He alluded to the great pending works on Highways – Dávila told him that Mobility is not just that – that “we promoted in four years with the Government of the Canary Islands»» and believes «today paralyzed».
“The important thing” for Pedro Martín, is that these works that have layout and execution projects, with public information already carried out and an environmental evaluation are a reality” and Rosa Dávila “lacks Rosa Dávila’s leadership before the Government of Canary Islands». He listed the Erjos Tunnel; the section of the Insular Ring between San Juan de La Rambla and Icod de Los Vinos; the La Laguna Beltway; the Chafiras-Oroteanda connection or the Fañabé-sectionThe Americas. In this sense, he appealed to Vice President Afonso, in his role as a statesman – even romantic as he himself said – to take up and lead those projects “already underway” because “you do suffer from the queues every day.”
Dávila told him that “the works are key” in the medium term as well as the railway system in the long term – trains to the north and south, as well as the expansion of the tram – but we had to do something immediately and that is where we have focused without fear of make mistakes” with “the support of economic and social agents.”
No new argument and each party taking credit for the achievements or criticizing the inaction of the other. From the new buses or trams to the reinforcement of the driver workforce. The government’s argument is that “there were only announcements regarding the new Titsa fleet and a loan of 20 million to pay interest to the banks.” The now opposition insisted on the previous work. Ruano, including as support the photo of the socialists on a northern bridge over the TF-5 in 2019, assessed: “They have done nothing because they settled into passivity in the struggle.”
Ana Salazar, spokesperson for Vox, was very critical of the island government. She even appealed to Lope Afonso for the PP to “take the step to work together.” The popular leader focused his gaze on the other side of the room.
Third chapter with the same arguments and identical positions as those already presented during the week. It does not seem that there can be a minimum agreement although everyone stated that this consensus is essential to advance on the path of solving the mobility problem in Tenerife, ‘
