Tractor protest against a proposed rail extension to Alcudia, Mallorca

Tractor protest in 2009 against the proposed rail extension through Son Fe.

Andrew EdeAlcudia05/08/2022 08:24
TW
1

Domingo Bonnín, the mayor of Alcudia, has proposed investment in a "good shuttle bus service" to connect Alcudia and Sa Pobla rather than a rail extension. He says that Sa Pobla "thinks likewise", both town halls being concerned by the loss of land that a rail extension would entail.

Bonnín explains that the Balearic government has commissioned a feasibility study and is considering possible routes - "but one in particular has yet to be put on the table". In Sa Pobla, Mayor Llorenç Gelabert has clarified that his administration is in favour of a rail service, especially taking into account climate change, but that the town hall doesn't want a railway line that will cause a loss of farmland. He adds that he has asked the mobility minister, Josep Marí, to take the opinion of the two municipalities into account.

For the government, a rail extension from Sa Pobla to Alcudia is part of its plan to expand Mallorca's system of public transport. It is one of three rail projects that are at present being contemplated. It argues that the volume of tourism in Alcudia, Playa de Muro and Can Picafort indicates the "high demand for collective transport". "This undoubtedly justifies a high-capacity service such as the train."

The mobility ministry goes on to say that the line to Sa Pobla has "always been a preliminary step to go as far as Alcudia", adding that at a time when it is necessary to reduce the number of car journeys, "it does not make sense for this line not to reach the coast".

So that the route would avoid farms on marshland, Gelabert makes the case for it to pass by the ring road in Sa Pobla and then run alongside the road from the motorway to Alcudia. From the main roundabout at the entrance to Alcudia, it would be up to Alcudia town hall to decide on the siting of the station - in Alcudia itself, in the area of Bellevue, by the sports centre or near the Menta club on Avenida Tucan. An alternative route that has been mooted in the past would involve a station by the abandoned Es Fogueró nightclub. But this would mean crossing farmland by Albufera, and Gelabert is opposed to this.

The route proposed by Gelabert would pass through Son Fe in Alcudia, and it was precisely this route and the opposition to it that helped to scupper a project in 2009. The town hall, whose mayor was then Miquel Ferrer of the Unió Mallorquina, was itself against this route. Domingo Bonnín is with El Pi, something of a successor to the UM.