The regional government is considering turning motorway central reservations into fast lanes for buses. It is an acknowledgement that traffic problems cause particular issues for public transport and is one proposal in the plan for island transport that has now been put out to public consultation.
The plan is for stretches of motorway coming into Palma and refers to the Llucmajor motorway and to the one from Paguera. Both have central reservations along sections coming into the city, which isn't the case with the Inca motorway. The idea would therefore be to concentrate initially on the two with reservations and to have a second phase for the Inca road.
A further idea for Palma-Inca is for bus-to-train transfer at the Es Caülls station at Festival Park. The bus would stop there and the onward journey would be on a metro-style train to the intermodal station that would operate every four or five minutes at peak times.
The government wants to speed up public transport because a journey can typically take up to almost three times longer than by car. Certain examples are given, such as to Cala Vinyes. Public transport means a journey that takes 2.7 times as long: 30 minutes by car and 81 minutes by public transport. A car journey to S'Arraco takes 40 minutes; public transport means 104 minutes.
The overall transport plan divides Majorca into three areas, for which there will be a single ticketing system when the plan comes into operation in 2019. The government aims to increase public transport use from a current 13% to 25%.