The Council of Mallorca takes the battle to remove the bus-HOV lane from the airport motorway to the Supreme Court

PalmThe Council of Mallorca has presented an appeal to the Supreme Court to try to definitively eliminate the bus/HOV lane on the Ma-19 motorway, the road that connects Palma with the airport. This was announced on Monday by the Island Councilor for Territory, Mobility, and Infrastructure, Fernando Rubio, at a press conference. He explained that the legal argument for the appeal is based on technical reports from the Island Council that support the removal of the lane, which should be "binding," just as they were when it was implemented. Rubio argued that this infrastructure "has not produced the desired effects" and that, therefore, the Island Council has opted for this legal route after the High Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) issued a ruling just a month ago in favor of maintaining the lane. In any case, the implementation of the bus/HOV lane has been suspended since 2024 due to various road infrastructure works on the island. Once these are completed, it should be reinstated unless the courts decide otherwise. The regional minister also announced that new works to improve safety on the highway median will begin "shortly" and that work on the first section of the second ring road will start in a few months.

Increase in accidents

The councilor rejected the argument in the TSJM (High Court of Justice of Mallorca) ruling that compares the accident rate of the bus/HOV lane with that of the rest of Mallorca's roads. According to the Council, the analysis should be carried out by comparing accident rates on the same stretch of road year after year. In this regard, it indicated that between January and October 2023, accidents on this stretch rose from 27 to 55, doubling compared to 2022, when the lane did not yet exist. In contrast, on the same stretch in the direction of the airport—without the bus/HOV lane—accidents fell from 37 to 32. The Council plans to update this data in its appeal. It also pointed out that the lane's occupancy during the summer of that year was between 7% and 10%, while the other lanes exceeded 65% occupancy and were "saturated." Furthermore, Rubio pointed out that "half" of Palma's EMT bus lines could not use this lane because they did not access the ring road, which, he said, caused traffic jams to shift to surrounding roads. For all these reasons, the councilor expressed his "confidence" that the Supreme Court will uphold the Consell's claims and defended the institution's use of a legal mechanism to prevent this infrastructure, which he considers "rejected by the people of Mallorca," from remaining in place. Finally, Rubio confirmed that the Consell has plans a meeting with the Directorate General of Traffic (DGT)Despite highlighting that the relationship between the two institutions is "good," he stressed that each one acts within its own sphereThe DGT (Spanish Directorate General of Traffic) regulates traffic, and the Consell (Valencian Government) is responsible for infrastructure. At this meeting, the Consell stated that it will defend its opposition to the bus/HOV lane and called for "goodwill from both institutions," because if one of them opposes a particular infrastructure, the other "must listen."