Public transport

By Jason Moore MAJORCA'S saving grace at the moment is the boom in so-called independent travel; tourists who organise their own holidays taking advantage of the no-frills airlines and booking their hotel online. This type of tourism is revolutionising the island and is rapidly gaining ground on the more traditional package holiday. I was at the airport over the weekend and was quite amazed at the long queues for taxis, the majority were British holidaymakers, who had organised their own holidays. Two things struck me; firstly that they were probably paying more for their taxi ride to Alcudia or Pollensa than the price of their air fare from Britain and secondly why don't the local authorities improve the bus service. Taxi fares are expensive and until a “no-frills” private hire system is introduced I can't really see any solution. However, surely something can be done about the bus service. We've all been reading about the fantastic new “Stations Park” in the Plaza España with its underground station. Millions of euros is being sunk into this project. But to help the independent traveller a small fraction of this money should be invested in a single bus time-table linking the airport shuttle bus with all the other bus services across the island. Majorca is relatively well connected. You don't have to take a taxi. If you are going to Calvia, there is an excellent service from the centre of Palma which could easily be linked with the airport. Once again in Majorca it is making better use of the island's resources for the benefit of the visiting public. So much is said about public transport but the people who do use it for sure on the island are holidaymakers. So why don't the local authorities make their life easier?