For weeks now, Yaiza Rodríguez, from Tenerife, has denounced on social networks the overcrowding in some bus lines in Tenerife. She lives in the municipality of Candelaria and every day she travels by public transport to Santa Cruz de Tenerife to go to the office. Her odyssey is shared by thousands of Tenerife residents who use public transport at peak hours. “In barely half an hour, the people wake up. They all come out at the same time and a collapse is caused ”, agrees Jon Fernández.
Experts analyze mobility in Tenerife: “Half of the movements of residents do not reach seven kilometers”
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Both are regular users of public transport in Tenerife since before the Government of the Canary Islands announced a 50% reduction in the rate last September. Now they have noticed an increase in travelers, but this growth has not gone hand in hand with an improvement in travel conditions. “We are having problems due to this increase in demand, but we are working on it,” the Tenerife Councilor for Roads, Innovation and Culture of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Enrique Arriaga, acknowledges to this newspaper.
“The lines that are in high demand are clearly identified,” adds Arriaga, also president of Tenerife Interurban Transport (Titsa). In the first part of the year, the use of long-distance public transport increased. On some occasions it even increased by 40%, according to data provided by the Cabildo. The economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the increase in the price of fuel have been two important conditions for users who have decided to join bus mobility. To this has been added the discount on tickets, which has resulted in an increase of 15 to 20% in the number of users, explains the counselor.
We changed vehicles but on the 122 of @titsa We continue one more day the same and due to this collapse arriving later and later. One more day @roadsTF @CabildoTenerife @earriagacs Y @PedroMartinTfe looking the other way and the media their accomplices pic.twitter.com/9TTfyIqigJ
— Yaiza Rodríguez (@YaizaRguez) November 30, 2022
The one of every day in the 122 of @Titsa. If there are already 17 people standing and there are people occupying the upper aisle of the bus, how is it possible that the capacity of the bus indicates on a sign that it can carry 45 people standing? in the roof? @TenerifeVial @roadsTF #nocuadra pic.twitter.com/lZtyK57SJw
— Yaiza Rodríguez (@YaizaRguez) November 23, 2022
Taking the bus at 6:35 a.m., Yaiza does not leave her municipality until 15 minutes later. As this newspaper has been able to verify, the schedules of the line that the Tenerife woman usually uses (112) are not continuous. There is a waiting time range between 15 and 30 minutes in the first hour of the morning, a delay that later affects you when you take the tram. In addition, two complementary lines to this one have been suppressed. Stress, traveling on your feet and the crowding of passengers have left images of people with heat stroke on public transport in recent weeks.
According to the person in charge of mobility, Enrique Arriaga, the solution to these problems is not to create new lines, but to add more buses to the lines where the collapses are generated. Along these lines, the response chosen by the highest island corporation has been the acquisition of more buses, which are expected to be incorporated in December, and the hiring of more drivers.
For some users, the temporary solution has been to travel earlier to avoid rush hours. This is the case of Jon Fernández, who took the bus at 7:30 and was forced to make the entire trip on his feet surrounded by people. “It meant arriving sweating and taking about an hour for a 20 to 30 minute journey.” He now leaves earlier, bringing his routine forward 30 minutes. “I get up early, of course, but I can go sitting down, comfortable and taking advantage of the time.”
The images of buses full of people or the tram to overflow have traveled the social networks with a tone of indignation. However, the Cabildo de Tenerife does not see it as illegal for passengers to stand on some trips. “The drivers of Titsa are scrupulous with the maximum number of passengers that the buses admit,” defends Arriaga. However, he acknowledges that due to these same security restrictions, there are travelers who are left outside and have to wait for the next turn.
Lanes shared with private vehicles
Another great problem of mobility in public transport in Tenerife is located in the lanes shared by the private vehicle and the bus. The buses use the same roads as the cars. If the cars get stuck there is no plan b, everything gets stuck. Alberto Carpio commutes every day from La Gallega, a suburb of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, to Los Cristianos, in the southern municipality of Arona. He spends around four hours a day commuting to and from work. To take the main line that takes you to the south of the island, you must go to the stop either by bus or in a private vehicle. When there are excess passengers and he has to wait outside, he spends an extra hour getting back home.
Mobility problems in public transport are also present in the metropolitan area, where 45% of the island’s population is concentrated. “Our neighbourhood, despite being close to the city center, feels like a periphery”, explains Ian Paulo. In the lagoon district of San Matías there are two direct lines to the two large cities of the island: Santa Cruz and La Laguna. However, this lagoon man denounces that the schedules of the bus routes “do not make much sense.” At the same time, he adds that, sometimes, the buses arrive late at the bus stop or even don’t show up.
There are also complications when waiting for the buses. The problems in the canopies and the conditions of the stops are also points denounced by the users. Carlos Fuentes travels frequently between La Laguna and Granadilla. “The stations or canopies are poorly conditioned and poorly protected”, he begins. San Isidro, in the Granadilla de Abona neighborhood, “is a point where many users come together throughout the day, but there is no canopy to protect them from rain or sun, neither public toilets nor information points to help passengers,” he says.
Not only the experience in the buses is negative, but also in the tram. Fátima Kenair, a regular user of the Tenerife metro, denounces that the tram “is usually crowded at peak hours and that there is less hygiene than in the buses”. At the same time, she throws a spear in favor of the tram where the frequencies are better than in the buses. “I don’t go home on weekends, which is in Garachico, because I can’t allocate more than two hours to get there and the same to return,” she exemplifies.
The interviewed users provide different solutions to solve the problems of passenger crowding at peak hours. The Cabildo de Tenerife is already working on the first big bet: more buses and more drivers. Regarding the expansion of the bus fleet, work has been done on it since May 2021. As reported by the Mobility Minister, 120 more vehicles have been requested, which would be added to the 660 already active around the island in order to improve frequencies. Added to this is a new fleet of drivers to cope with the increase in demand, as well as improved conditions at stops: more space to take shelter from the sun or rain.
At the same time, they propose a change in the schedules of the lines, adapting them to the points of the day with the greatest demand. In addition, the passengers propose the creation of a specific lane for the bus, as is the case in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, to relieve traffic congestion and encourage the use of public transport. More controversial bets also arise, such as the change in working hours to avoid the concentration of passengers first thing in the morning and the return home at noon.