The president of the Council of Tenerife, Pedro Martin (PSOE)declared this Monday, November 21, to EL DÍA that they will study “with the greatest interest” the proposal to implement a reversible lane at peak hours in the Northern highway (TF-5) to try to reduce traffic jams in the direction Santa Cruz of Tenerifeand announces that “we would be delighted to implement it if it proves to be an adequate formula” to achieve that goal.
There is a good predisposition on the part of the Insular Government to try this alternative, suggested by mobility experts from the University of La Laguna (ULL)but Peter Martin recalls that “something similar was tried in the past and some previous studies have been carried out in this regard which, according to their conclusion, does not seem to solve the problem. Although it may facilitate traffic in a certain area, in the end it generates a new traffic jam where it ceases to be reversible.
Despite existing doubts, Peter Martin stresses that “we are going to continue studying any alternative like this and, at the same time, we continue working with the Government of the Canary Islands to promote the pending works on the Tf-5, which we believe are the ones that are going to solve the problem”. Specifically, the insular president refers to the route of La Laguna ring road“which will be an alternative to the height of the Tenerife North airport”.
Martín acknowledges that he has also tried to reach agreements with the ULL to delay the start of classes at ten in the morning: “We have proposed reaching agreements and conventions with the ULL to be able to reduce the hours and start at ten in the morning. Unfortunately it has not been possible, but we have come to propose an agreement and a ULL-Cabildo agreement for this reduction. It is not possible because they tell us that it is very complicated to make that change, but We continue looking for any alternative while waiting for the execution of the workswhich will be the true solution”.
“We have proposed reaching agreements and conventions with the ULL to be able to reduce the hours and start at ten in the morning. Unfortunately it has not been possible”
Regarding the project of the ring road of La Laguna, the island president recalls that “the project is finished, has financing and is only waiting for the environmental evaluation. Once we have it If all goes well, next year the works will be able to be put out to tender”. In his opinion, this action will mark a before and after by being able to “divert traffic through a tunnel road next to the North airport.”
The expert’s opinion
The professor of Fundamentals of Economic Analysis and director of the Chair of Economics and Mobility CajaCanarias-University of La Laguna (ULL), Rosa Marina Gonzalezexplained in statements to EL DÍA that in order to try to resolve the historic problem of traffic jams on the Northern highway (TF-5) it is necessary to apply a cocktail of mobility management measures that requires the involvement of users and includes the promotion of teleworking; the flexibility of schedules; the development of collective transport for companies and entities; the promotion of public transport, which should offer advantages “especially in terms of time”; the creation of interchanges to park at strategic points to facilitate access to public or collective transport, and the sacrifice of one of the lanes of the northbound TF-5 to serve as a lane for buses and Vehicles with High Occupancy (HOV) in the direction of Santa Cruz at times of greatest traffic chaos. This reversible lane, which was already tested in isolation and without success in June 2010, is now one of the few hopes that traffic jams can be reduced more or less immediately.
For this ULL professor, «the ideal would be to sacrifice one of the lanes that goes in the opposite direction to the traffic chaos for this collective transport, a reversible lane like those used in other places. When people are standing in line and see the bus go by much faster, at that moment we can achieve this modal transfer from the car to public transport. It’s very difficult before.” In his opinion, “If the bus does not have exclusivity in the TF-5, it is not competitive, no matter how much the price drops”.
Rosa Marina Gonzalez has qualified that that reversible lane could be effective and viable, “as long as it is not tested in isolation and without other types of complementary and simultaneous measures. When this reversible lane is put into operation, other actions to promote collective transport will have to be applied through the offer of strategic interchanges and the management of parking lots at the destinations, in order toreduce the volume of cars on the roads».
In the same line, Yeray HernandezPhD in Economics and researcher at the Department of Applied Economics and Quantitative Method of the ULL, adds that despite the failure of 2010, it would be interesting to try the reversible lane option again “because at that time the results were poor” as it was “ an isolated measure”, between Tacoronte and Los Rodeos, from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. «The measure was abandoned, but is it bad? Well, it is not known why it must be adapted with a package of measures that also includes the penalization of private transport, “concludes this mobility expert.
The collection of signatures stagnates
The colective North Trade Winds launched two weeks ago a campaign to collect massive signatures, through change.org, to show the rejection of the society of Tenerife to the traffic jams that have affected the North motorway for more than 30 years. under the motto ‘No more traffic jams on the TF-5’this association aspires to channel the growing malaise of the more than 226,000 inhabitants of the 15 municipalities of the North and many other people from Tenerife who, for different reasons, have also been affected by this collapse without a solution since the 1990s. After gathering more than 2,000 signatures in the first days, the campaign has stalled in the last five days and remains below 2,500. Still far from the 11,000 gathered in 2017.
