In the meeting between president Llorenç Galmés and the director general of Traffic, Pere Navarro, the island institution has rejected the application of time slots.

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The airport motorway bus lane-VAO

The president of the Consell de Mallorca, Llorenç Galmés, held a meeting with the director general of Traffic, Pere Navarro, to discuss the elimination of the bus-VAO lane on the airport motorway. Both institutions have agreed to create a technical working group to study alternatives to this infrastructure which, according to the Consell de Mallorca, is not working, increases the number of accidents and causes more traffic jams. President Galmés was accompanied by the councillor for Territory, Mobility and Infrastructures, Fernando Rubio, and the island’s director of Infrastructures, Rafel Gelabert.

Pere Navarro, who was accompanied by the provincial traffic chief Francisca Ramis, has proposed the possibility of applying time slots, which has not been accepted by the Consell de Mallorca with the argument that it will cause more “traffic chaos”. In this regard, the president of the Consell de Mallorca has recalled that the technical reports of the island institution between 1 January and 31 October 2023 accidents on the Ma-19 in the direction of Palma increased from 27 to 55 (more than 50%) compared to 2022 where there was no Bus-Vao. On the other hand, in the airport direction (without bus-VAO) they fell from 37 to 32. Likewise, occupancy of the bus-VAO lane was only between 7% and 10% on average during the summer, when the other two lanes were saturated and exceeded 65%.

President Llorenç Galmés explained that, although the creation of this working group to study alternatives has been agreed upon, “the Consell de Mallorca will continue with the administrative appeal to defend the competencies of this institution, which, as the State Traffic Regulations state, the reports of the Consell as owner of the road are binding, and the Directorate General of Traffic (DGT) has not taken them into account”. Galmés highlighted the good harmony of the meeting and expressed his confidence “in being able to find effective alternatives to improve mobility in Mallorca, especially in the accesses to Palma”.