The Madrid City Council stands before Óscar Puente. The delegate of Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility, Borja Carabante, has highlighted the “institutional disloyalty” of the Ministry of Transport due to the leaks prior to holding the meeting, even minutes before the appointment, in which he has revealed what his mobility proposal before the start of works to bury the A-5.
Transport has asked the José Luis Martínez-Almeida City Council to delay the works on the Extremadura highway until at least March to guarantee an alternative mobility plan, at the same time that it has transferred its commitment to make the R-5 free temporarily , as long as the city council collaborates in the financing of that measure.
However, after the meeting held at the CRTM headquarters between the three administrations to address mobility alternatives, Borja Carabante has indicated that the Ministry is not able to explain what works they have to carry out so that the City Council has to delay the construction works. the A-5 and that the Government of the Nation cannot reinforce Cercanías.
“The data they have provided us says that they have capacity for 47,700 additional spaces without carrying out the work. There is enough capacity to be able to begin the work of burying the A-5 with the traffic detours,” Carabante said at the end of the meeting. .
Carabante has called the meeting “disappointing” and has indicated that the Ministry has “excuses of being a bad payer” and insists on “hitting the town councils with the R-5.” “We want Madrid to be treated the same as the rest, the same as the municipalities of the province of Alicante, where the AP-7 is free and paid for in full by the Ministry,” the delegate insisted, while recalling that the rest of the mayors, except for Alcorcón, which is from the Socialist Party, request free radio.
The work will not be delayed
Given this scenario, Carabante has stressed that the work of burying the A-5 to make way for the Paseo Verde “is not going to be delayed” because “there is no reason for it.” “There is consensus among all operators and administrations that it is necessary to reinforce and there is capacity to reinforce all operators,” he noted.
“These works were known to all administrationsincluding the Ministry of Transport. They were put out to tender in February of this year and awarded in July. We have sent letters and held meetings, including with Óscar Puente on October 17, where he informed the City Council that they had the capacity to reinforce Cercanías,” explained the Mobility delegate of the Madrid City Council, and then added that ““The Southwestern Green Walk is an urgent work that must be carried out as soon as possible.”
Carabante has insisted that the “only possibility” that an alternative mobility plan to the A-5 is “viable” involves the Immediate and free reinforcement of Cercanías during rush hour on the R-5.
“The surprising thing is that, a few weeks after starting, the Ministry of Transportation says that now we have to do work. It generates a lot of distrust. What underlies it is an intention to delay a work that for the Madrid City Council and the residents is absolutely essential and important,” he concluded.
Transport’s position
On the part of the Government, the Secretary General of Sustainable Mobility, Álvaro Fernández Heredia, has indicated that They are “open” to talking about the free R-5 with a financing agreement with all administrations, but has criticized that the Madrid City Council is not willing “to contribute or finance at all anything that has to do with the liberalization or free of charge of the R-5.”
The Secretary General has maintained his “climate of collaboration” and has insisted that it will immediately undertake a reinforcement of Cercanías of between 25 and 40%. “I want to highlight the importance of this effort, because we have heard how Metro de Madrid reinforces with 10%, how EMT reinforces with 9% or how the interurbans, far from being reinforced, it turns out that the service is going to be cut and that “They are not going to enter Madrid on the bus lane, as they have been doing until now,” he censured.
For his commitment to Cercanías, he explained the importance of postponing the start-up of these works to March to have extra capacity and one more lane in Atocha for the C-5 that would allow the service to increase. “It seems that there is a roadmap that does not involve listening to the rest of the administrationswhich does not involve listening to the neighbors, which does not involve finding the best solutions, but simply moving forward without reaching a consensus,” the secretary criticized.
Likewise, he has insisted that the promoter of these works is the Madrid City Council and therefore considers that It is this administration that must take care of the expenseswhile it has stressed the importance of having a bus lane that has continuity in the city of Madrid.
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