There is another problem with traffic "saturation" and it has little or nothing to do with tourists and hire cars; it has everything to do with snow and island residents.
Escorca town hall wants there to be greater traffic control when it snows because of the "avalanche" of cars and visitors that arrive in the mountains. The mayor, Antoni Solivellas, is to send a letter to the regional government's department for emergencies in which he will explain the situation with the roads and traffic and urge that a plan is formulated to tackle this.
The mayor says that the roads are "saturated" with cars that have nowhere to park. The problem is exacerbated by snow ploughs piling up snows on bends where there would be the possibility of parking. "The result is usually chaos, with cars parked in the middle of the road and very long queues."
In addition, the mayor explains, visitors ignore signs that are supposed to give some order to traffic, meaning that cars just end up all over the place. The town hall doesn't have direct responsibility for the main roads (they come under the Council of Majorca), while the local police service is limited to the point of being wholly insufficient. "We believe there needs to be a procedure for greater vigilance," says Solivellas.
Local residents suffer as a result of this lack of control. For example, cars are parked in front of accesses to properties.
This is the latest traffic issue to trouble Escorca. In Sa Calobra, for instance, the town hall introduced a new system for coaches last summer in order to try and control parking there. And there have also been problems because of the sheer number of cyclists in springtime. The mayor has in the past called for there to be controls placed on the volume of cyclists.