The Council of Mallorca has indicated that summer of 2026 would be the most “realistic” date to begin applying restrictions on the circulation and entry of vehicles to the island. Council president, Llorenç Galmés, admitted that he would like to “have them applied in 2025”, but during the past year he said he has had to devote himself to carrying out a study of the carrying capacity Mallorca’s road network.
He indicated that the Council has commissioned a report by legal services to implement the various measures “as soon as possible”, although these must first pass through a full session of the Council and then be approved by the Balearic Parliament. Among the measures are the establishment of a ceiling on the number of cars on the roads, limiting the number of hire cars that can enter and a “dissuasive” tax for cars that want to enter Mallorca.
Other proposals in the study include the creation of mobility plans in municipalities and traffic-generating centres, the promotion of collaborative mobility initiatives, such as carsharing and carpooling, the recovery of railway lines, such as the Llucmajor railway line, and an increase in bus frequencies and lanes for public transport.
Galmés made these statements at an ‘expanded’ Mobility Commission held today, Tuesday, in which the results of the study of freight were presented to the opposition parties in the Council of Mallorca, the Government, representatives of the DGT, the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands and the Federation of Local Entities of the Balearic Islands (Felib). He stressed that he wants these measures to be “consensual” and to compensate for this reduction in private vehicles, a plan of dissuasive car parks will be developed to promote public transport and another of civic roads with more than 60 kilometres of pedestrian and bicycle lanes, with the aim of “promoting sustainable mobility among Mallorcans”.
“It is clear that the Council cannot look the other way, as it has done in the last two legislatures, and has to act, when for the first time in the history of Mallorca we have data indicating that, for example, only in 2023 nearly 400,000 cars entered the island, 108% more than in 2017”, he stressed.
The opposition PSIB spokesperson, Catalina Cladera, has described the load study as “very basic” and has reproached the Council for “not tackling” traffic on the accesses to Palma, which, in her opinion, is where the problem persists “all year round”.
Cladera called for the continuation of measures that have been developed so far, such as free public transport, extending the rail and bus network, and the creation of park-and-ride car parks. At the same time, she claimed that in order to reduce the number of vehicles, it is necessary to “reduce tourist places”, a measure which she criticised the Council for announcing but “not acting on”.
Jaume Alzamora, spokesman for MÉS per Mallorca on the island council, announced that the group has registered amendments to the Council’s budget totalling nine million euros to implement the measures contemplated in the study of the load on the road network. The island councillor has warned that the draft budget presented by the government team for 2025 “does not include any budget item for implementing the measures, recommendations and indications contained in the study of load” of the road network, so it has asserted that these public accounts are framed in “a context far removed from the Mallorcan reality”.
The spokesman for El PI, Antoni Salas, expressed his support for the coucil’s team to implement measures to put an end to the “saturation of vehicles on the island”. “These measures are necessary, but they come too late. The PI has been calling for years for a limitation of rental vehicles, a limitation of cars and a load study,” he explained, adding that a study of the Balearics’ human load capacity should also be carried out.