"Adding lanes to deal with traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity." The quote is 68 years old, the words of an urban planning specialist, Lewis Mumford.
A contemporary urban planner, Carlos Moreno, has used it in responding to the Council of Mallorca's plan to add additional lanes on two sections of the Via Cintura in Palma.
Internationally known for having developed the idea of the 15-minute city - dense and diverse neighbourhoods in which buildings have different uses and the demand for mobility is reduced because all services are a quarter of an hour away from home - Moreno believes that the Council will be making "a serious error". "In these times aggravated by the climate emergency, which this summer has been the most serious in modern history, it is a serious error to believe that the definitive solution to problems of traffic jams and congestion lies with more lanes, more roads and more routes."
Advisor to the mayor of Paris, Moreno refers to the "fallacy of induced supply". "When more roads are built or existing ones are expanded to solve the problem of congestion, initially there may be an improvement in the traffic flow. However, over time, these wider or new roads encourage more people to use cars, as they perceive that traffic conditions have improved. Consequently, the number of vehicles on the road increases again, leading once more to congestion."
Joana Maria Seguí Pons, professor of geography at the University of the Balearic Islands and director of the Balearics Interdisciplinary Mobility Observatory, agrees that expanding roads results in more vehicles in the medium term. "We have a general problem of volume, and that cannot be solved by tarmacking all of Mallorca. In recent years, the population has grown by 70% and the number of vehicles by 65%. Traffic in Mallorca increases between 10 and 15% every year and there are sections of the Via Cintura through which up to 200,000 vehicles pass daily."
A specialist in sustainable mobility, Juan Antonio Lobón, says that the main problem is the excessive dependence on private cars in the Palma metropolitan area; above all, on the Via Cintura. He points out that Llucmajor has gone from having 14,000 vehicles in 1996 to more than 34,000 in 2022; Campos from 5,000 to 12,000; Santanyi also has twice as many vehicles. For Lobón, adding lanes to the Via Cintura would produce the 'bottleneck' effect, with accesses to Palma grinding to a halt.
Seguí Pons recognises that there is no single or magic remedy but argues that there is an urgent need for establishing policies that enhance public transport and reduce the dependence on cars. "And we must also raise awareness as citizens, asking ourselves, for example, if it is necessary to use the car to take the kids to school." Investment in local businesses versus driving to out-of-town shopping centres; staggering schedules; walking routes for schools; healthy routes for older people. "These are initiatives that can help to change the model."
She cites the case of Amsterdam, a city of sustainable mobility. "It hasn't always been a bicycle paradise. In the 1970s it was full of cars until the first great oil crisis led to proposals for the active mobility that we know now."
Moreno stresses that the problem goes beyond opening or closing roads. "The solution is not to build more roads but to reconsider and redesign our cities and our transport systems to reduce dependence on cars. The question we must ask ourselves is what city we want to live in and how we can reduce necessary journeys."
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The 15 minute design is an excellent one that works extremely well throughout most EU cities. I can get most of what I need done (groceries, haircut, vet, correos, dine, pharmacy, etc) within a few minutes of my apartment (in Palma) by either walking, bus, bike, or moto. In America, the cities are opposite....all the services in one area, all the homes in another, and you have to drive from one to the other. No one walks. Expanding the lanes will only help for the short interim until they, too, will be jammed. The answer is mass transit. I don't understand WHY, on this primarily flat island with a lot of wide open spaces, we don't have an effective rail network serving many populated areas that now have only a smattering of bus service. By providing rail service, people could opt to live outside heavily populated areas where their jobs might be and commute via train instead of their cars. Tourists and citizens alike could visit attractions (ie; village markets, beaches, favorite restaurants, etc) without cars. Reduced pollution and not having to take up wide swaths of land with asphalt. You don't have to be Einstein to see, lookinig at a map, there should be a line(s) running all the way to Pollenca (and Port of), over to Alcudia, down through Can Picafort and over to Arta. The existing Manacor line should connect up with Arta, with an extension over to Porto Cristo. Another line should go from Palma to the Airport, then along the populated stretch to S'Arenal, then out to Llucmajor, Campos, and over to Santanyi. Look at these lines on a map from the standpoint of who could be served, the reduction of cars on the roads, and the benfits brought to those communities (ie; more business for Santanyi and Arta markets, easier access to tourist interests, more options to live elsewhere, more beach excursion options, restaurants and shopping, reduce vehicles accessing the airport, more freedom of movement between communities). The challenge is.....it needs to be started YESTERDAY!!!
Unless the Island improves its size and Transport systems. Then the only other answer is to limit the number of vehicles allowed to use the roads With the compulsory introduction of very expensive Electric vehicles. May reduce the numbers on the roads.Although Hydrogen powered vehicles may be good for no pollution. They will be expensive. But all they exhaust is water.
@AMBERGRILLO Totally agree ALL your comments. Especially increasing the size of The Island The PALM PROJECT IN DUBAI comes to mind. It would be expensive. But a great deal of money is acquired in Mallorca from Tourism and Taxation. A project to start increasing the Size of the Island would be a start and solution. Improving ALL Transport another solution.
When I first came to Mallorca 12 yrs ago, I could not understand why the metro/train line didnt circumnavigate Mallorca. A continuos loop would seem logical, along with either 'free' or very low cost subsided public transport for all.
The Only solution is to cap the number of cars all year round. Really improve the public transportation system and make it cheaper then taking your car. Like it or not, there is no other solution. Unless you can make the island bigger!
Stay away from Mallorca Moreno, with your silly 15 minute city ideas that wouldn't work here, or anywhere in the world for that matter. It's another agenda to control and lock people down into areas. Please explain when I live in a village with no Trainline or bus to Palma, how I would get my kids to school then get into work in Palma Paseo Martimo for 8am? I then have to drive up a down the paseo throughout the day in and out of ports for work, which is a nightmare at the moment. What a stupid idea for everybody unless you like not being allowed to leave your small area they allow you. Or they will fine you a tariff. This idea should be rejected by everybody. It wouldn't work even if the transport infrastructure was impeccable.
Leaving aside the environmental impact, adding more lanes would only ease congestion if the majority of the vehicles in this section are exiting the motorway before the extra lanes end, if not, you just create a bottleneck where the lanes merge.