11/05/2013 00:00
TW
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THE Council of Majorca has managed to improve 64 “black spots” and “highly dangerous spots” on the Majorcan roads during last year, which meant spending 60 million euros to improve the roads, said the Head of Public Works, Antoni Pascual. At the same press conference where these statistics were unveiled, the Director of Roads in the Council of Majorca, Gonzalo Aguiar, explained the budgetary facts behind the road improvements. In this way, these black spots were eliminated thanks to a huge investment of approximately 60 million euros, which enabled the Council of Majorca to carry out 198 road projects. This budget started out as 50'6 million euros and was divided between the costs for investments (34.1 million euros), costs for maintenance and conservation work (10.6 million euros) and personnel costs (5.9 million euros). In the end the budget had to be increased to 60 million euros, said Gonzalo Aguiar. The “star project” during last year was the dual-carraigeway works to the Palma-Manacor road, said Antoni Pascual.
This project, which will finish at the Algaida exit, will hopefully be completed by the end of this year.
During the last three years the Department for Roads in the Council of Majorca has managed to eliminate around 200 “black spots” on Majorcan roads.
In addition, works were carried out to improve many other roads, said Pascual, such as the Campos-Colonia de Sant Jordi road, Portol-Santa Maria road, Port of Pollensa bypass, Inca-Llubi road and the Arta-Canyamel road. Also, money was spent on the safety of the Soller and Son Vic tunnels, which were both improved last year.
All these projects took into consideration environmental impacts, as well as cultural heritage matters added Pascual.
The statistics also highlight that the Expopriate Service team dealt with 40 requests, and the Explotation and Conservation team managed 557 requests.
The Director of Roads at the Council of Majorca, Gonzalo Aguiar, said that the Council of Majorca has been making a great effort to maintain and conserve the roads on the island. Daily there are 40 teams with 200 personnel dedicated to the projects that are being developed in the Roads Department.
The Director said that for 2006 he wants to increase the road budget by 20 percent.
Currently the Council of Majorca has no plans to carry out improvement works to the road between Sa Cabaneta and Marratxinet, where three men died this week, said Pascual. This road is well signed and it is believed that the dreadful accident was caused for other reasons not related to the state of the road.