The president of the Council of Mallorca, Llorenç Galmés, and the councillor of Territory, Mobility and Infrastructure, Fernando Rubio, held a meeting this morning with the municipal representatives of Palma, Llucmajor, Calvia and Marratxi, as well as representatives of the Government, with the aim of seeking solutions to the traffic jams on the accesses to Palma.
Galmés and Rubio presented the actions that the Council is working on as part of a Plan of Accesses to Palma, which basically consist of widening lanes on different stretches of road, especially on the ring road without consuming territory and which, in some cases, could reduce vehicle queues by between 25% and 30%, according to the department's technicians.
These are the projects the Council is working on to reduce traffic congestion on the accesses to the capital:
1. The point with the highest traffic density is the section where the ring road meets the Inca motorway, whre more than 170,000 vehicles pass through daily and where there are major traffic jams. The project consists of gaining a lane on the ring road going towards Andratx between the Inca motorway and the Valldemossa exit. There is space for the half-lane and this will mean that vehicles coming from Inca will have a direct access lane and will not have to ask for passage from those travelling on the ring road, which is where the traffic jams occur.
2. Linked to the previous initiative, work will also be carried out on the accesses to Can Valero and Son Moix. The roundabout located under the ring road suffers daily traffic jams of vehicles that want to access the Can Valero and Son Moix industrial estate, as well as numerous residential areas in the area. The project consists of building a 'zero lane' with direct access, avoiding the roundabout and lightening the traffic on the roundabout.
3. Under the Can Blau roundabout, a bottleneck is formed by vehicles coming from the airport motorway to the ring road, as it only has two lanes while the ring road has three. A third lane will be built under the roundabout that will link up with the current three lanes of the ring road at the height of the Estadio Balear. Technicians point out that this action will reduce the queues of vehicles coming from the airport towards the ring road by between 25% and 30%. The cost of this action is around three million euros and the works will last between three and four months from the time the contract is awarded.
4. The tunnel lights will be replaced with LEDs. This will improve drivers' visibility and traffic flow, as poor visibility causes traffic jams. Eighty-four photovoltaic panels will also be placed on the median of the beltway to power the new lighting with renewable energy throughout the day. This work will begin in the first quarter of 2024.
5. The municipal representatives were informed of the study of the consecuences caused by heavy traffic on Mallorca's roads, which is being carried out by the Consell de Mallorca, in order to carry out a careful diagnosis of the saturation situation of Mallorca's roads and to be able to take specific measures to deal with the traffic jams. Vehicle entry data has been requested from the Port Authority and figures have been requested from the Government and the DGT to complement this load study.
6. Within the Palma Access Plan that the Council is working on, there are also other complementary actions, such as the accesses to Palma from the Llucmajor housing estates, improving the Son Verí roundabout; improvements to the roundabout on the Soller road next to the ITV station to reduce traffic jams, and a new access branch next to the old Palma prison.
Galmés, explained that section I of the second ring road will be the only major infrastructure to be processed during this legislature. "The collaboration between the municipalities of the metropolitan area and the Council of Mallorca is essential to find efficient solutions to the traffic jams that all Mallorcans have been suffering for years and which are the result of the inaction in road policies during the last legislature".
The Council and town councils have also called on the government to promote improvements in the frequency and connections of public transport, especially between Palma and the rest of the municipalities.