All aboard...from Palma to airport by train to ease traffic nightmare

This is the age of the train...and soon Palma could be connected with Llucmajor with a new rail link, Balearic President Marga Prohens announced in parliament this morning. The Balearic government estimate that up to 7.5 million people per year could use the service.

"This month, the project for the new train service from Palma to Llucmajor will go on display. It will also connect, among other points, Palma's residential neighbourhoods with the Son Llàtzer University Hospital, the future Palma exhibition centre, Palma Airport and a park-and-ride car park at Son Oms," she stated.

In her opinion, this is "a project that provides a mobility alternative to one of the most saturated roads and points of the road network".

"A project with which we are recovering and starting up again, after a decade of many promises and announcements, but of absolute paralysis, with not a single metre of track put out to tender," she told parliament.

Prohens and her government are under pressure to resolve the traffic problems on the islands with many key roads suffering gridlock at peak times.

Until the 1960s there had been a railway link between Palma and Llucmajor. It was closed but its remains are clear for all to see from bridges to stations which have now been converted in homes or offices.