Tenerife has faced daily and for decades the congestion of its roads. With each rush hour commute to and from work, island residents spend an average of at least 20 extra minutes on the road. In recent weeks, and with the discount on public transport, overcrowding problems have also been reported on buses and on the tram. The search for a solution to traffic jams is a great challenge for experts in the area. But is there a magic solution to solve them?
Nueva Canarias proposes a BUS-VAO lane and interchanges to end the queues in Tenerife
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Santa Cruz de Tenerife is one of the four most congested Spanish provinces, according to the traffic data server TomTom Traffic Index, which collects information about mobility around the planet. In Tenerife, trips are 21% longer due to congestion. For example, a journey that would take 30 minutes without traffic takes six more minutes due to traffic jams, while in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, which ranks eleventh in the same ranking, an average of five minutes and extra medium.
Traffic problems take their toll and residents of Tenerife waste a total of three days and eight hours on average per year queuing on the roads, according to the same study by TomTom Traffic. The loss of time is not the only negative consequence of the collapse of the roads. Increased stress or greenhouse gas emissions add to the list of collateral damage from traffic jams. According to the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT), stress alters the ability to drive safely and “dangerously increases” the chances of having an accident.
To alleviate this situation, the experts consulted agree that there is no single answer. The director of the Chair of Economics and Mobility at the University of La Laguna, Rosa Marina González, affirms that one cannot speak of a single solution, but of a package of measures. On this point, the urban planner María Tomé agrees, who talks about tackling the problem of mobility from several points, adding to the equation the citizenry as a participant in the solution, the feminist perspective and the ecological focus.
The excessive use of the private vehicle is one of the most problematic points of mobility in Tenerife. According to data from the Canary Islands Institute of Statistics (Istac), the island accounts for 43.9% of all passenger cars in the Archipelago. The Canary Islands also leads the ranking for being the area with the fewest vehicles with the Low Emission Zone (ZBE) access label in the entire country. A measure that will be mandatory for Spanish cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants with the new Climate Change Law.
“We make a disproportionate use of the car, leading to the construction of roads, which few have been made to us. It is a vicious circle”, adds the professor in Mobility. However, the debate extends beyond whether or not to use the car. Tenerife has 821 vehicles for every 1,000 inhabitants, of which 569 are passenger cars. That is, there is one car for every two residents. The figure is above the Spanish and Canary Islands average. To the excess of private vehicles per inhabitant must be added the fleet of tourist cars.
In order to relieve traffic congestion, the Cabildo de Tenerife has opted for the construction of a third lane for the motorway and a work at the Anchieta roundabout, in the municipality of La Laguna, where one of the major bottlenecks occurs. of the island. However, these new infrastructures will take years to arrive.
Why is there an excess of cars in Tenerife?
“One reason is cultural,” explains the urban architect Rodrigo Vargas. However, it is not the main cause. The dispersion of houses in the midlands of the island has pushed residents to use the car. “We have a problem of territorial rapprochement. We have gone to live far away and we need to move to access economic activities and services”, adds Vargas.
The debate is not on gentrification either, which has been at the center of public debate for months. “It is not that there are so many of us, nor that it makes it difficult for more people to enter, it is a problem in the organization of the space”, indicates the geographer José León.
The distribution of housing stocks in the north, located on former agricultural land and built outside the planning plan, pose a problem when it comes to managing mobility. It is practically impossible to reach all corners of the north by public transport, explains León. Nor would it be profitable. However, there is an alternative. Professor Rosa Marina González is committed to creating several interchanges with car parks in different parts of the island so that citizens can consider leaving their private vehicle and continuing their journey by public transport.
Meanwhile, the Cabildo de Tenerife plans to implement transport on demand throughout the island. The initiative consists of bringing taxi services to people who live in the suburbs, in scattered points, to the nearest bus stop. It would be done as a kind of transshipment that would cost around ten cents. The first vice president of the Cabildo de Tenerife and president of the public transport company Titsa, Enrique Arriaga (Ciudadanos), explains that this on-demand transport system was tested in the municipalities of Arico and Fasnia and “was a success”. For this reason they hope to repeat the formula throughout the island.
The architect Rodrigo Vargas explains that it is cheaper to pay a taxi for a person to travel to the nearest public transport, than to invest in taking bus lines to points of low demand. This would be one of the possible incentives to promote the use of collective transport instead of the car. In a more complete package of measures, experts endorse the creation of a specific lane for the bus and passenger cars that travel full, a possible reversible lane that changes depending on demand, while hindering use. of the private car.
In this line, the director of the Chair of Economics and Mobility at the University of La Laguna, Rosa Marina González, affirms that among the many measures that are necessary is dividing the schedules. This measure would allow not to concentrate all the activities at the same time. She also proposes to encourage teleworking and online teaching, as far as possible, as well as public transportation. Likewise, she proposes promoting shared vehicles for companies that mobilize many workers and also among students.
“You have to create incentives. If you see that the bus is standing next to you in line, you don’t generate that need to use it, but if you see it pass in front of you, while you’re in a traffic jam, it could arouse interest because you’d win something”, adds Rodrigo Vargas.
The objective is to make the use of public transport a pleasant experience. For this, even the smallest detail must be taken into account, from having areas prepared to provide shade, space to take shelter on rainy days, public toilets, seats at stops, etc. In addition, the urban planner María Tomé adds the need to take into account the vulnerable situation of women when using public transport at night. The lack of an in-depth analysis is one of the handicaps that this expert has found in order to tackle the problem. “With a tiny part of what the southern train would cost, a multidisciplinary investigation can be budgeted for,” she adds.
The experts consulted, against the southern train
The urban architect Rodrigo Vargas worked with the data from the mobility plan that the Cabildo de Tenerife prepares for the island. From them he extracted realities such as that 70% of the routes that the residents of Tenerife make daily do not exceed seven kilometres. Only 10% of drivers travel around 15 kilometers per day. Almost half of these displacements occur between La Laguna and Santa Cruz. For Vargas, the island’s mobility patterns indicate that a train would not be the appropriate response for residents.
Other experts consulted agree on this, rejecting the construction of the north and south trains as the solution to the traffic jams. “We are not a peninsular territory where the train fights against CO2 emissions from planes. Here it will produce a negative impact on land consumption”, adds Tomé. In this sense, the geographer José León is positioned, who insists that the train would not solve the mobility problems that exist in Tenerife because the dispersion among the residents would continue to exist.
Public transport problems
“We are behind in the mobility patterns of the island,” adds professor Rosa Marina González. Last Thursday, October 6, 2021, was the day with the most traffic jams of that year in Tenerife. In total, the road journeys lasted 48% longer than in usual conditions.
The Councilor for Mobility of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Enrique Arriaga, admits that in the first part of 2022 the use of long-distance public transport has increased. There has also been a new increase in September with the announcement of a 50% discount on rates.
Looking ahead to January 2023, the Cabildo expects new users to join due to the free travel for users with transport vouchers. To meet the increase in demand, the institution hopes to have a public transport park of 780 buses. There are currently 660 of these vehicles in operation on the island. Neither major highways, nor long-distance trains. Transversal and consensual measures could tackle the problem of traffic jams in Tenerife.
