The spokesman for the opposition Partido Popular in the Council of Mallorca, Llorenç Galmés, today called for the “immediate” elimination of the bus-VAO high-occupancy vehicle lane on the grounds that it will be a “failure” as long as there are no viable transport alternatives for the users of this road.
Galmés declared that the majority of drivers who drive to Palma every day do so “out of necessity and not on a whim”, and if they have no other alternative, such as “effective” public transport that allows them to arrive on time, “there is no choice but to take the car”.
Galmés said that “getting to Palma has become an odyssey” and that “the waiting time at rush hour has multiplied”: if it used to take 5 minutes to travel 4 kilometres, now it is 15.
The new lane has caused more traffic jams than usual on the Manacor road as drivers look for alternative routes to reach Palma.
Galmés went to the entrance to Palma this morning to check “in situ” the traffic jams generated from the Fan Mallorca shopping centre and the entrance to the Balearic capital. “This is another example of a chaotic government, which is obsessed with banning everything”, he said.