The president of the Cabildo of Tenerife, Rosa Dávila, yesterday thanked the Government of the Canary Islands for having given “flexibility” to the island corporations for the application of free public transport, “giving the possibility” that in 2024 the renewals of The vouchers “are not every month, but every three months”, thus confirming that this new period will apply on the Island. Predictably, the Cabildo will request a minimum of 30 trips necessary in that three-month period to achieve free travel.
Dávila pointed out that “we have gone hand in hand with the Cabildo of Gran Canaria”, since “the behaviors between the capital islands are more similar”, which is why he has maintained contacts with the Transport Minister of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria “to carry out a similar system.” In this sense, Gran Canaria already confirmed yesterday that users must make a minimum of 30 quarterly trips to obtain the free voucher.
“We understand that flexibility when it comes to obtaining free cancellation, lowering the number of cancellations to ten monthly, as we already did, and taking it to a quarter, will allow the user to be calmer when making trips,” he noted. the insular president, which will also avoid “unnecessary trips” to meet the monthly minimum of voucher cancellations, which saturated transportation.
The vouchers benefiting from free will be the same as until now, for residents, young people, seniors and people with disabilities. Furthermore, Dávila added that “we are trying to ensure that the Canary resident voucher can be used on different islands, so that the cancellations of a young person who lives in La Palma and studies in La Laguna can be used on one island and another.”
Regarding financing, he indicated that the Tenerife Cabildo has had to contribute “20 million additions to cover the financing needs of free services”, since the number of users increased by around 40% last year. Therefore, the state government’s calculations have been insufficient: “Free access was established for the Islands as a whole at 81 million. We estimate that the needs, with the increase in the number of users, are around 120-125 million.” Therefore, he is confident that the State budget for 2024 will include “not only the amount that satisfies the free provision, but also that it can complement the 2023 item.”
Likewise, the president emphasized that the Cabildo “will directly deal with the payment of the free payment” while waiting for the approval of the decree and the item is finalized.
Mobility meeting
On the other hand, Rosa Dávila also announced that today the third meeting on mobility will take place in which different groups, administrations and entities on the Island will take part. The meeting will address different aspects and measures that have been worked on over the years. throughout these months with the different groups and entities convened.
