The municipal group of Lanzarote En Pie (LEP) in the Arrecife City Council has announced that it will submit a motion to the Plenary on the "state of neglect" currently presented by the municipal bus service.
Leticia Padilla, spokesperson for LEP in Arrecife, stated that “the current situation of the municipal bus service is worrying. The neglect in recent years has reached such a level of carelessness that it is directly affecting users and workers”.
From Lanzarote En Pie they maintain that “there are numerous complaints from service users about the condition of the buses, from cleanliness, the lack of fire extinguishers and glass-breaking hammers to the malfunction of accessibility ramps for people with reduced mobility or the lack of air conditioning in hot weather”. Likewise, the municipal group warns that “there are complaints about the saturation of passengers in some time slots, mainly during school entry and exit times.”
On the other hand, from LEP they affirm that the demands of the service's own personnel must be added to the neighborhood complaints, “who have been requesting a sectoral regulatory agreement for some time that has not yet been defined, in addition to the lack of foresight in working hours or the mechanical maintenance of the units.”
Given this context, Leticia Padilla has expressed her discontent “with the lack of management by Astrid Pérez's government”. For Padilla, the municipal bus service in Arrecife “should be the backbone of urban mobility and the main element of transport between neighborhoods. However, what we have right now is a deteriorated, insufficient service neglected by the administration”.
"If the city of Arrecife wants to advance towards a sustainable mobility system, it must prioritize collective transport, and that involves improving and maintaining the public management of the bus service, not only buying more units but also establishing schedules and routes that meet the needs of the residents", concluded the spokesperson for Lanzarote En Pie.