The PSOE of Lanzarote has proposed recovering the project that it left designed in the last legislature to implement a system of shuttle buses to the Timanfaya National Park from the towns of Yaiza and Mancha Blanca. The party in the island opposition has criticized "the failure" of the measures adopted by the president of the Cabildo, Oswaldo Betancort, and his councilor of the Centers of Art, Culture and Tourism (CACT), Ángel Vázquez.
The former CACT councilor, Benjamín Perdomo, has lamented that, "far from seeking structural solutions, the current island government of Coalición Canaria has limited itself to improvising, allowing images of kilometer-long queues to be repeated over and over again and traffic jams in the middle of the general road."
“This week we have seen the collapse to access Timanfaya again, aggravated by failures in the online reservation system”, he pointed out.
“The project that we left prepared proposed a logical and sustainable solution: dissuasive parking lots in Yaiza and Mancha Blanca, connected by shuttle buses. With this, the massive arrival of private vehicles to the center of the park was avoided, the road was decongested and the visitor experience was improved while reducing the environmental impact”, he explained.
From the PSOE it has been warned that the current situation not only harms those who visit Timanfaya, but also the citizens who use the Yaiza-Tinajo road daily. “The CACT are benefiting from using a general road as a waiting room for their clients, but the damage is suffered by the natural environment and the people who have to endure a monumental traffic jam to reach their destination”, Perdomo criticized.
“The problem is not with the CACT, which continue to charge entrance fees; the problem is with the environment and the people trapped in urban traffic in the middle of a National Park. That is unsustainable”, he added.
In addition, the model promoted by the PSOE allowed to boost the local economies of Yaiza and Mancha Blanca, turning them into starting points of the route and generating economic activity in both rural centers. “It was a proposal designed not only to solve an environmental and mobility problem, but also to distribute the benefits of tourism in a more balanced way”, he recalled.
“The Cabildo has in its hands a solution ready to be applied. What is lacking is political will and a vision of the future for this island”, Perdomo concluded.
