The Proyecto Lanzarote 2021 (PLZ21) collective, promoted by business owners and residents of the island, has proposed an alternative to the "elevated" roundabout promoted by the Government of the Canary Islands at the entrance to Arrecife, in the El Cable area.
Thus, it has argued that the initiative of the Canarian Executive intends to "create a road infrastructure of an elevated roundabout that only attends to mobility parameters of motor vehicles" and that also "creates a break between urban environments".
In this line, the architect of the PLZ21 proposal, Eduardo Spínola Rosa, has argued that this type of infrastructure should be understood as "a collective development of multidisciplinary ideas involving various technical agents who develop and enrich the project".
In this sense, the proposal has two intentions: to create two horizontal planes, one underground where the mobility of heavy traffic is allowed, and another on the surface "that allows for smoother mobility more in line with our condition as human beings, designed for pedestrians and cyclists".
“Therefore, we understand this link for the entrance to Arrecife as a much more humane hub in which there can be a clear permeability between all the peripheral urban areas and the Island in general”, he highlighted.
The promoters of this project have promoted the creation of "a topographic element that allows mobility on the surface in all its axes, apart from creating areas of shade, protection from the wind, and places for staying and recreation, allowing connection with all the nearby environments and promoting an insular paradigm on how to solve this type of hub in some cases".
They have also insisted from the drafting team that the proposal is a preliminary project, a "conceptual" idea stretched to the maximum, "that responds to and exemplifies what has been said, with the humble impetus to favor our environments and the interest of our society, taking into account that if this alternative is not proposed, the Government of the Canary Islands will impose on us the construction of a "scalextric" that we believe is outside of what we intend to be as a society".
To conclude, this proposal has been put forward "without ceasing to believe in the utopia of a more consistent mobility and in which the mobile fleet could be reduced and create smoother infrastructure networks", but being aware that we must attend to safety and road guidelines and regulations regarding infrastructure design, "against which we can hardly fight", they believe that "we must propose better alternatives that have the majority of social support from the Island".
Project of the Government of the Canary Islands
From the drafting team, they insist that the proposal is a preliminary project, a "conceptual" idea stretched to the maximum, "that responds to and exemplifies what has been said, with the humble impetus to favor our environments and the interest of our society, taking into account that if this alternative is not proposed, the Government of the Canary Islands will impose on us the construction of a "scalextric" that we believe is outside of what we intend to be as a society".
About the collective
Proyecto Lanzarote 21 is defined as "a group formed by citizens and technicians from Lanzarote. Its purpose is to contribute proposals to be carried out on our Island, with the aim of promoting the execution of public investments that result in better living conditions for citizens, prioritizing the conservation, restoration, and identity of the island's natural landscape and our traditional architecture, always with a future perspective".