by Staff Reporter
PALMA
THE speed limit for traffic coming off the Llevant and Ponent motorways will be reduced from 80 to 60 kilometres per hour.
Palma city councillor for Mobility, Joaquin Rodriguez, announced yesterday that Palma council and the Council of Majorca have agreed in principle that the speed limit for vehicles coming off the Llevant and Ponent motorways should be no more than 60 kilometres per hour.
He added that in principle, this measure could come into force from October.
Rodriguez had a meeting on Thursday with experts from the Council of Majorca, at which the director general of Palma council's Mobility department, Francisco Donate, was also present.
He gave no further details of the agreement, which has yet to be definitively approved by the Council of Majorca but, in principle, the speed limit will be 60 kph from the first set of traffic lights encountered on entering Palma from the airport motorway and will remain at 60 kph up to the traffic lights outside the Customs building.
In the opposite direction, vehicles coming from Calvia will have to slow down to 60 kph from the first set of traffic lights on entry to Palma and keep to that until the Dique del Oeste bypass.
The councillor added that on the Paseo Maritimo the speed limit would also change, and would be 40 kph, instead of the 50 kph it is now. This measure could also come into effect in October.
The councillor highlighted that with both these changes the council is trying to significantly reduce the accident rate at points which have had a great concentration of traffic during the last few years.
He also said that they were considering other measures, such as the possible installation of radar traps on the Paseo Maritimo. These are measures on which the Mobility department will take a final decision during the next few months.
The existing speed limit in Palma is 40 kph, with the exceptions of the Paseo Maritimo, the Avenidas, Calle Manacor and Calle Aragon, where the speed limit is 50 kph.
Also, at some specific points in the old part of Palma the speed limit is just 30 kph and this will remain unchanged.