SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 30 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Housing of the Government of the Canary Islands has already ordered the payment to the island councils of 35,982,897 euros from EU funds to finance twenty projects that aim to digitize and decarbonize the sector land transport on the islands.
This item is part of the Funds of the EU’s Next Generation Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, which allocates more than 41 million euros to the Canary Islands, of which about 36 correspond to the councils and the remaining five for the Ministry’s own projects that they are already underway. All projects financed with these funds must be completed before April 2025.
With these funds, the Ministry will finance the projects presented by the councils and which will mainly be used to buy electric vehicles for bus fleets and other public vehicles, to implement more charging points for this type of vehicle, to create new Bus-HOV lanes , to build bus interchanges or to install intelligent canopies at stops.
In addition, the Ministry reserves a game of another 5,044,000 euros of these European funds that the Executive is already executing directly, for the digital transformation of public road transport and the creation of the Registry of Land Transport Operators.
With these funds, whose distribution was agreed upon and closed with the councils months ago, a decisive boost will be given to updating the land transport sector in the Canary Islands, promoting low emission zones, decarbonization, and digitization of the entire public land transport sector of the Archipelago.
Most of these actions will be carried out under the so-called Component 1 of the Shock Plan for sustainable, safe and connected mobility in urban and metropolitan environments. It is a program for the implementation of low emission zones and transformation of urban and metropolitan transport . The six applicant councils -El Hierro did not request a proposal under this program- have included projects for which the Next Generation Funds contribute the aforementioned 35,982,897 euros, an item that some councils will now complete with their own resources.
With this item, the Cabildo de Fuerteventura will acquire three electric vehicles and will modernize the canopies of the bus stops (expected investment of 2,828,038 euros); in La Gomera an information system for bus users will be implemented (160,000 euros); in La Palma, five sustainable vehicles will be purchased, photovoltaic panels and smart canopies will be installed (1,936,273 euros); in Lanzarote, three sustainable buses will be acquired and a preferential stop will be built in Costa Teguise (3,385,287 euros).
In Tenerife, new phases of the Bus Lane will be built on the TF-5 and a new section of the HOV Bus lane on the TF-1, in addition to installing recharging points for buses at the Santa Cruz de Tenerife Interchange (14,508,546 euros) ; and in Gran Canaria the funds will be invested in the construction of the Island’s Mobility Control Center, which will be located in the Tamaraceite neighborhood of the capital, and in a preferential stop in Santa Brígida (13,164,751 euros).
