The Administrative Litigation Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Castilla y León (TSJCyL) has annulled the Municipal Ordinance of the Valladolid City Council for the regulation of restricted use lanes, considering that “it does not comply with current regulations” and lacks adequate regulation of essential elements. Furthermore, they have pointed out that the establishment of passage restrictions is left “in the hands of other actions.”
The ruling, which may be appealed, states that “the regulations that are the subject of this resolution are not in accordance with the law,” since the ordinance does not define with sufficient clarity who the restriction affects, how it will be implemented or under what conditions, which leaves key aspects in the hands of subsequent regulations or decisions, contravening the applicable legal framework.
The measure by PP and Vox in the Valladolid City Council was presented as one of the main axes of the new government team to end the changes in urban mobility aimed at promoting the use of bicycles in the city. Since November 2023, the use of fifteen bike taxi bus lanes began to change, which are now called “restricted use”. In addition, the plan was to dismantle the bike lanes on Isabel La Católica and Avenida de Gijón and expand the Poniente Bridge. The ordinance had a total cost of 6.4 million euros and was scheduled to end in mid-2025. Of the proposed changes, a portion of them have been made except for the expansion of the Poniente Bridge and the Isabel La Católica bike lane. , currently undergoing dismantling works.
The ruling of the TSJCyL reminds PP and Vox that their ordinance fails to comply with regulations such as the Consolidated Text of the Law on Traffic, Circulation of Motor Vehicles and Road Safety, which requires that measures that significantly affect the use of urban roads be explicitly regulated. through ordinances. These regulations, as they impact areas of high urban mobility, require a more exhaustive and guaranteeing regulatory framework.
In the resolution, to which elDiario.es has had access, the court considers that the lack of adequate regulation substantially affects the general right of citizens to use urban roads. In addition, the procedural costs are imposed on the City Council of Valladolid as a consequence of the total estimate of the claim presented by Ecologistas en Acción Valladolid.
The TSJ of Castilla y León has used a 2022 ruling against the previous traffic regulation plan of the Valladolid City Council, when Transport Minister Óscar Puente was mayor, as a basis to annul the PP and Vox decree. The Popular Party, then in opposition, was the promoter of the demand.
The now challenged ordinance derives from the need to correct the deficiencies indicated in the 2022 ruling. That TSJ ruling established that any regulation of the use of urban roads that entails substantial restrictions on the rights of citizens must be carried out through municipal ordinances, guaranteeing greater transparency and regulatory clarity. With the 2023 regulations, the court has considered that there is still a lack of adequate regulation and leaves essential aspects undefined, which leads to it also being declared null.
According to the TSJ of Castilla y León “the ordinance becomes, in reality, a rule of referral and does not fulfill the purposes for which it is intended”, so “the meagerness of the provision makes it legally unfeasible.”
Among the reproaches to the ordinance, the TSJ of Castilla y León has criticized the City Council that when they refer a “specific type of rule to discipline a matter”, it must “regulate the essential elements that affect it.”
The text approved by PP and Vox has an impact on citizens, since, as the ruling has reflected, the measures “the measures contemplated in the ordinance generally and intensely affect the rights of the people of Valladolid.”
The City Council will appeal and will not modify the city’s mobility
As it is not a final ruling, the Valladolid City Council has announced that it will present an appeal. The Councilor for Traffic and Mobility, Alberto Gutiérrez Alberca (PP), has indicated that the ruling “does not alter any of the mobility modifications in any way.” The mayor has stated that “the main modifications” will be maintained “as they are.”
The ‘popular’ councilor has pointed out that the ruling, in its legal foundations, includes his arguments in the 2022 ruling against the PSOE and VTLP decree. “What the magistrate is saying is that the 2022 ordinance was not exactly well regulated, since the restrictions “had to have been specified in a more detailed way,” defended Gutiérrez Alberca.
In addition to the appeal, the government team is going to incorporate in a new modification of the ordinance the aspects included in the ruling to be “more clarifying” and incorporate issues related to the law and regulations of traffic and road safety.
Gutiérrez Alberca has defended his work by carrying out an “absolutely guaranteed” procedure. For the councilor “all citizens have understood that these modifications have been extraordinarily positive for mobility at peak times.”
The person in charge of Traffic and Mobility has indicated that the City Council “has not eliminated bike lanes”, since they have made a “replacement of the itinerary”. “Our rules have been clearly liberatory rules, clearly in favor of an improvement in the means of circulation for all types of movements, for pedestrians, for cyclists, for private vehicles and also for buses,” he added.
Ecologists in Action demand to stop the works of Isabel la Católica
Ecologista en Acción, promoter of the lawsuit, has demanded that the Valladolid City Council immediately stop the ongoing dismantling of the Paseo de Isabel la Católica bike lane and its restitution to enable cycling mobility in that main axis of the city. Without prejudice to the recovery of the Gijón Avenue bike lane and the bus lanes suppressed by the popular government team against the jurisprudence that it itself provoked.
As recalled by the Carlos III Health Institute and the Global Health Institute, air pollution caused by traffic causes more than two hundred premature deaths in the city of Valladolid each year. However, the Municipal Anti-Bus and Bike Lanes Ordinance never evaluated its impact on air quality and noise, a mandatory evaluation according to the municipal Atmospheric Environment and Noise regulations, they criticized in a statement.
In the opinion of Ecologistas en Acción, the city does not need to eliminate bus lanes or bicycle lanes, but rather the opposite: substantially increase the spaces reserved for the circulation of pedestrians, cyclists, scooters and public transport. The rights to health and an adequate environment are essential for life, and are thus included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Spanish Constitution, prevailing over any illusory and non-existent right to circulate through the city in vehicles with gasoline engines. burst.
“Vaparalo without palliatives” for PP and Vox
The PSOE spokesperson in the Valladolid City Council, Pedro Herrero, has described the sentence as “an unmitigated setback” for the PP and Vox government team. The socialist leader has indicated that the ruling of the TSJ is “the consequence that is experienced when one does things to destroy and going against everything.” Among them, against “the criteria of municipal technicians, the guidelines of the European Union and citizens.”
Herrero reminded the mayor that there were more than 1,600 suggestions presented for the ordinance, of which 90% were not taken into account. The representative of the PSOE has demanded that Carnero “be sensible” and “not waste the citizens’ time.”
The PSOE has demanded that Carnero restore the bus lanes that he has removed in the Puente de Poniente, in Isabel la Católica, and also in López Gómez, with the Plaza de la Universidad and that he stop the destruction of the Isabel la Católica bike lane that is “completely legal and is being raised illegally.”
For Herrero, although the sentence does not include an obligation to reverse the changes or paralyze the work, Carnero can say that the destruction of the Isabel La Católica bike lane stops as it is a political decision. For the PSOE spokesperson in the Valladolid City Council, it is a “political will” to rectify.
VTLP calls for the urgent reversal of all measures
For his part, the councilor of Valladolid Take the Word (VTLP), Jonathan Racionero, has sent an audio in which he has demanded the urgent reversal of all the measures derived from this ordinance and has criticized “the haste and lack of planning.” of the PP and Vox coalition, since he recalled that since they announced the modification of the use of these lanes, his formation has denounced “gaps and defects of these hasty decisions,” reports EFE
“We believe that the Valladolid City Council has taken a bad path, now we see that they were totally wrong and we hope that as soon as possible they stop what they were doing, because Valladolid deserves a much better city and this government is not up to the task,” he stated. .
For its part, Ecologistas en Acción has requested “the immediate cessation” of the works on Paseo de Isabel la Católica and its restitution for the mobility of cyclists in one of the city’s arteries.
In his opinion, Valladolid “does not need to eliminate bike lanes or bus lanes” but rather requires increasing these circulation spaces to protect the rights to health and the environment over “any illusory and non-existent right to circulate through the city in vehicles with explosion engine.”
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