MÉS warns that the nautical bus will extend tourist overcrowding to El Molinar and El Portitxol
The group criticizes that the lines for cruise passengers will begin to operate two months before the regular service with vouchers for residents
PalmaThe MÉS candidate for mayor of Palma, David Pujol, denounced this Thursday that the nautical bus project being prepared by the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) and the PP “will bring tourist overcrowding to El Molinar and Portitxol”. In a statement, the party criticized that the project mainly responds to the needs of tourist activity and cruise passengers, instead of addressing the daily mobility problems of residents.
nautical bus that the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) and the PP are preparing “will bring tourist overcrowding to El Molinar and Portitxol”. In a statement, the party criticized that the project mainly responds to the needs of tourist activity and cruise passengers, instead of addressing the daily mobility problems of residents.
MÉS warns especially about the new connection to Portitxol incorporated in the tender announced on Wednesday by the APB. The party considers that this represents another step towards extending tourist pressure towards a residential area like El Molinar. “The PP and the Port Authority presented the nautical bus to us as a solution to Palma's mobility problems, but every step we learn about makes it clearer what the model is: facilitating the movement of cruise passengers and taking this tourist pressure further and further away from the port. Now the next objective is Portitxol and El Molinar”, warned Pujol.
The candidate described the calendar announced by the APB as “revealing”: lines 2 and 3, focused on the mobility of cruise passengers, will begin operating on November 1, while line 1, the regular interior service open to the general public and with specific vouchers for residents, will not do so until January of next year.
In addition, the provisional operator has committed to transporting at least 300 passengers per hour between the cruise ship terminal and the center of Palma.
“First they put into operation the lines for cruise passengers and then they will think about the residents”, criticized Pujol, who considers that “this is not fighting overcrowding, it is giving it new ways to expand throughout the city”.
MÉS also warns that other companies in the maritime sector have publicly expressed the fear that the project will end up drifting towards activities linked to maritime tourist excursions and have demanded that the new tender limit this possibility.