It seems easy to talk about mobility, put out a few pamphlets, paint a bus and pay for the odd publicity campaign where they talk about spaces for pedestrians and all those empty speeches that sound very good but are useless if they are not put into practice with planning and do little to solve the problems of our citizens or improve coexistence.
Wasting 18,000 euros (it's funny how it's always this amount) on hiring advertising on the bus with no fixed destination in friendly media is not promoting mobility, nor is abandoning the traffic light system in the capital, nor is having an urban line system where the user is condemned to spend a lot of time on board before reaching their destination. Passing times that are not met, frequencies that are not respected, services that disappear and are not replaced, non-existent signage or the main arteries of the capital closed to traffic on a whim THAT IS NOT MOBILITY. It will be something else but certainly not mobility.
A few days ago, some residents of Argana were complaining about a deficient, inefficient and expensive urban transport system. What more can you ask for? To complete "the hardship" perhaps that it is not an accessible service or that it does not fulfill the objective that, as a Public service, it should have of bringing the resident closer to their needs.
Perhaps in Arrecife they are confusing mobility and immobility. Immobility is not attending to the demands of the commercial sector, the residents or the transport sector to make decisions that affect the city, immobility is letting pedestrian crossings disappear under the asphalt and immobility is ignoring advice from experts and professionals in the sector who advise against the actions taken and recommend others in the opposite direction. Immobility is allowing a neighborhood to be left without service for not covering staff shortages and immobility is raising prices without improving any of the service quality indicators.
Try it, do this exercise, enter the City Council's website http://www.arrecife.es/portal/ p_contenedor_index_1v_13_3.jsp?seccion=s try to decipher the schedules, routes or times when the urban bus passes by the nearest stop to your house, I say GOOD LUCK and PATIENCE and after hours to decipher some obsolete, incomprehensible and error-laden images of schedules you will come to a conclusion. ARRECIFE'S URBAN TRANSPORT, LIKE THE TRAFFIC LIGHTS, SIGNAGE OR THE BIKE LANE, INFORMATION ON STREET CLOSURES OR THE MARITIME AVENUE ITSELF, DOES NOT WORK IN THE CAPITAL.
Four lines with an average journey time of one and a half hours (the European recommendation is 30 minutes), a number of stops per line that ranges between 30 and 50 (the recommendation in the transport observatory is not to exceed 20), a reliability in the times marked at the stop of 3% (the average in the Canary Islands is 70%) and so on and so forth on the multiple achievements of the Department of Immobility of the Arrecife City Council in this legislature.
Arrecife, its residents and visitors deserve an open, pleasant and comfortable city to move around in and that is certainly not what those who visit us or those who use urban transport convey to us in their surveys.
Those of us who follow the television show PASAPALABRA often agree that there are terms that seem to fit into any of the definitions that can be given of them as if they were a wildcard. And without a doubt, MOBILITY is the wildcard term of the PSOE of Lanzarote and they use it when they don't even know very well how to explain what it consists of, let's try to play... (I invite you)
WITH I, INEFFICIENT, DEFICIENT, EXPENSIVE AND UNATTRACTIVE COLLECTIVE PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM FOR ITS USERS.
WITH I, LACK OF ADEQUATE, UPDATED AND CLEAR SIGNAGE TO GUIDE THE USER.
WITH I, ARBITRARY DECISIONS REGARDING THE USE, CLOSURES AND DIRECTIONS OF PUBLIC ROADS WITHOUT OFFERING ALTERNATIVES TO ROAD TRAFFIC.
WITH I, DISORDERLY CIRCULATION OF BICYCLES AND PEDESTRIANS ON POORLY DELIMITED AND UNCONNECTED ROADS.
WITH I, LACK OF INFORMATION TO USERS, PEDESTRIANS AND DRIVERS REGARDING CUTS, CLOSURES AND RESTRICTIONS.
WITH I, UNUSABLE TRAFFIC LIGHT SYSTEM AND LACK OF CONCERN TO SOLVE IT, IGNORING INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS.
WITH I, IMPOSSIBILITY OF USING PUBLIC TRANSPORT FOR PEOPLE WITH SOME TYPE OF DISABILITY AND LACK OF ACCESSIBILITY IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE.
WITH I, PROHIBIT PASSAGE OR PARKING TO THE PUBLIC IN CERTAIN AREAS AND ISSUE SPECIAL PASSES FOR COUNCILORS, FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES.
WITH I, MAINTAIN A DEFICIENT SYSTEM THAT COSTS THE RESIDENTS OF ARRECIFE SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSAND EUROS EACH YEAR AND RAISE THE PRICE OF THE TICKET WITHOUT THIS RESULTING IN ANY IMPROVEMENT OF THE SERVICE.
Well yes, WITH I, we can talk about IMMOBILITY and that is what is practiced in the so-called MOBILITY department in the management of its resources, problems and neighborhood demands with respect to traffic and mobility.
Arrecife deserves a comfortable, efficient, economical transport system that makes its use attractive to citizens to encourage its use. A system of radial lines that effectively connects its neighborhoods with few stops and short travel times. A system that ensures that residents of Argana Alta or Baja, Altavista, San Francisco Javier, Tinasoria, La Vega, Valterra or Titerroy can move freely in the city and access services under the same conditions as those in the Center. A system that coordinates with the inter-island system to unite the different modes of transport in a common objective: TO CREATE A COMFORTABLE AND EFFICIENT GLOBAL NETWORK THAT MAKES IT ATTRACTIVE TO CITIZENS and that provides collectivity and at the same price the main meeting and exchange points of the different transports.
Promoting Mobility is achieving a punctual, reliable and economical transport system in which the user can trust that the bus is at the stop on time and takes them where they want with enough time on a short and fast route that allows us to want transport to go to work, leisure or simply tour the City. In short, that the bus is in its place when it has to be and that on the way there is just enough time to arrive.
We deserve to aspire to improve mobility in a real way by involving companies and professionals in the sector in the challenge, attending to their demands and favoring their improvement. Specific bonus systems for sectors of the population that demand them, sensible prices for a quality service that makes its use attractive and that helps those who need it to "move" around Arrecife.
There is much to be done in the mobility of our capital from enthusiasm, innovation and the adoption of decisions that allow ARRECIFE TO HAVE a transport and mobility of the 21st century. But of course there is a place from which mobility cannot be addressed and it is from IMMOBILITY, neglect and apathy. A mobility that goes beyond words and empty content and that improves the quality of life of the residents of Arrecife and its visitors.
By Echedey Eugenio Councilor of Tourism Spokesperson for Coalición Canaria Cabildo de Lanzarote
