The other day I was a pundit on a Spanish radio programme discussing free public transport in Mallorca and its impact. Overall, I said that I thought it was a great idea but the plan had failed. On the plus side the number of people using public transport in Palma has doubled but on the negative side local roads are still gridlocked and the summer season and all its hire cars has still not arrived. It is a question of nice idea, shame it didn't work. So what can the local authorities do to overcome all the traffic problems? Well there are two simple answers - either more roads are built including a second ring-road around Palma or the local authorities introduce strict new guidelines to reduce traffic.
Going nowhere
The traffic plan is quite simply gridlocked
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Zoltan TeglasThe continuous demonisation of all things not British supports the desire that Britain still reigns supreme. Especially now that Britain continues in slow motion decline. It's something that every British tabloid engages in, because it's what most Brits want to hear. If the German economy drops .2%, it's surely the biggest collapse in history and casts doubt on the whole future of Europe (since of course, it's been teetering on collapse ever since the loss of Britain), while if the British economy declines by 5%, it's just the normal ebb and flow of the markets, or something the yanks did. Carry on. If the EU implements a vastly more efficient passport/immigration control system, it's obviously an affront to Brits specifically (think "Brexit punishment"), yet if Brits have to wait in a passport queue when arriving in Spain, this is unacceptable and threatens to bankrupt Spain because they're all going to Greece now in protest (where, ironically, they'll endure the very same thing). Yet the normal 40min - 1 hour wait at passport control at Stansted is perfectly acceptable. You know, we need to protect our borders and all (foreigners just can't resist the sunlit uplands, and we need to make sure they'll behave themselves). It all adds up to reassurance of Britain's superiority in the world. Surely many will scoff at that, but both the evidence and motivation of it is ubiquitous. And precisely that spin is printed on a daily basis in British tabloids. It's so completely normal, it's simply oblivious to Brits, while outside that bubble, it's quite obvious to everyone else. And funny thing, no other nationality behaves in quite the same way.
Peter PerfectI think the siesta is a thing of the past for most companies now. The school run does cause chaos, especially the '4x4 mums' who don't just drop the kids off and leave but double park for 30 mins to have a chat with the other mums. It seems to be the social event of the day for a lot of them.
Morgan WilliamsI don't understand why this paper always dwells on the negatives and tries to find them when they're not even there. And I think a lot of Brits have a patronising attitude towards Spain and think it's backwards compared to the UK when the opposite is true. You only have to compare the roads, trains, train stations, WiFi speeds, hospitals etc. One country is moving forwards the other backwards.
Zoltan TeglasIt should be of no surprise to anyone that this, along with everything else, is a "failure". Even when any alleged failure is, in practice, actually a resounding success. You can't let them get away with that.
Try eliminating the afternoon siesta and giving shops and offices more flexibility for opening times, that would be a start. Two starts and two ends to a day doubles the traffic.
Where are all the gridlocks? I regularly travel from Palma to Inca, Manacor, Soller and Calviá and apart from at rush hour very rarely get stuck in traffic jams