With the little time he has left after dealing with the various open fronts of the precarious water supply on the island, Councilor Domingo Manuel Cejas Curbelo also has to undertake reforms in the rest of his competences. Among them, the island's public transport, outdated for years and which does not fit with the labor and population reality of the territory.
In an interview with Radio Lanzarote, Cejas Curbelo breaks down the main changes that the new public tender for public mobility in Lanzarote will entail, whose program contract will be ready next year and will include various improvements in lines and frequencies.
- Ecologistas en Acción has asked the Cabildo not to build more roads. What are the Cabildo's plans to improve public transport on the island?
It is clear that we must go in that direction if we want to conserve our territory and our landscape. We have a mobility plan that was commissioned to be drafted (by the previous Government with the company Doymo) and now we are reviewing it. The document has been charged, but it has not yet been approved.
We are talking with the company to include the changes that we have told them to make us an economic proposal. Until we have the definitive mobility plan, we cannot launch the new program contract, since the previous one ends in December. We will probably have to extend it and in parallel launch the new tender for the new program contract.
"We are talking about a 10-year contract and many millions of euros"
- I understand that there will be numerous companies interested in participating in the new tender. How many millions of euros are we talking about?
It will be an open contract, so several companies will present themselves, even more so being such an ambitious tender. We are talking about a 10-year contract and many millions of euros. It will be ready next year.
We want to make a change in line with society. We have already increased the service, since there are many more users due to the free service, once a series of conditions have been met. Now we want to improve lines and frequencies.
"We want a public transport service at the level of Tenerife or Gran Canaria"
- How are you going to convince the people of Lanzarote who stopped using public transport due to the lack of frequencies to use it again?
There are small towns on the island that we cannot reach with the same service as other lines, but surely there will be what we call transport on demand. (provision of non-regular service, but adapted to the preferences of the users who request it).
We have two fundamental pillars, the mobility plan and the program contract. With them, we want to make that leap that allows us to have a public transport service at the level of that in Tenerife or Gran Canaria.
"We want to reinforce lines 60, 61 and 63 and have more buses that go directly to the south"
- But are there no measures that could be taken immediately? For example, that there are buses at the airport for flights arriving after 10:30 p.m.?
Yes, that is also part of our roadmap, we want to include it in the new contract. We also want to reinforce lines 60, 61 and 63, what we call the Costa Teguise-Playa Blanca axis. We are analyzing the routes and their demand, as well as the destinations of most users.
We have data that confirms that in several schedules 80% of users go south, to Puerto del Carmen or Playa Blanca, so we understand that many of these buses should not go to the Arrecife interchange, but directly to the south.
"Tourists want to rent electric cars, but they have nowhere to charge them, especially with a reasonable charging time"
- You have not yet extended hours, but if you are reinforcing services based on demand, is that not so?
Yes, we are putting reinforcement buses, which are already leaving constantly, not only punctually. We have frequencies in which instead of one bus leaving, two leave, and sometimes even three.
- To take more steps towards sustainable mobility, would it not be necessary to place a good network of chargers for electric vehicles?
It is true that we have few chargers. We have to put more. Our colleagues from Industry are working on it. There is a great demand, not only here, but also on other islands such as Tenerife or Gran Canaria. And especially from the rental car sector, to whom customers are asking for electric cars, but then they are faced with the problem that they have nowhere to charge it and especially with a reasonable charging time.
