By Francisco Cortez
Palma City Council yesterday unveiled an ambitious plan to reduce the number of cars in the city and promote the use of bicycles.
Palma.—According to Palma’s Urban Transport Planning department, over 941,000 vehicles use the city’s roads every day and estimates show that by 2020 that number could rise up to over 988,000.
The idea is to cut that number by at least 45,000 per day.To achieve that, councillors and senior members of the department were challenged to come up with assertive resolutions for the following ideas proposed by the department:
- Less cars: reduce the number of trips done daily in the city. Plans to increase public parking prices and make the streets more pedestrian friendly have been brought forward.
- Public transport: To increase the number of bus users by 13 percent and reach the 137, 724 daily users mark. To achieve that plans to increase the speed of public transport from 16,6 km per hour to 17,8 km per hour are currently being considered.
- Bicycles: New cycle lanes to be built all over the city, promote the use of this type of transport and create specially designed bicycle parks.
- Friendly streets: The Council wants its citizens to enjoy walking in the street without being overwhelmed by all the cars.
- Pedestrians: More space for pedestrians. The idea is to make available more pedestrian paths and access to public transport easier with bus stops within five minutes walking distance from everywhere.