Mercedes Garrido, councillor for land and infrastructures at the Council of Majorca, last week announced that the Council hopes to start work on a lengthening of the MA-19 motorway at the beginning of next year. This would mean an extension from Llucmajor to Campos, something that has been demanded for years. Garrido suggested that work will take two years to complete.
Juanjo Martínez, who is the general coordinator of the Esquerra Unida (United Left) in the Balearics, argues that the project is the same that the Partido Popular had but with slight adjustments and that it is "totally unnecessary". The extension project, he believes, is representative of land and transport policies which "we had hoped would not be undertaken by a progressive Council of Majorca". (By progressive, he is referring to the left-wing political makeup of the Council - PSOE, Més, Podemos.)
Majorca, says Martínez, does not need more motorways. It needs a different model, one with a firm commitment to public transport, to a limitation on urban growth and to an end to "the destruction of land".
"The island is already at its limit, and we cannot allow more land to be taken over by infrastructure that perpetuates a model that has brought us to this situation." He notes that Garrido's initial promises recognised this situation and that she had spoken of there being "zero growth".
He accepts that the road from Llucmajor to Campos does need improving - it has a poor accident record - but claims that improvement can be achieved with minimal additional use of land. What is planned, he insists, encourages private vehicles to the detriment of public transport and a sustainable model of land use.
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A better road would be good but this idea would simply push the problem further from Palma to Santanyi and beyond. As a resident of S'Alqueria Blanca, a by pass of some sort is desperately needed there and in Calonge.