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The Municipal Socialist Group considers that the municipalization of urban transport in Lorca is "a valid option" because it is possible to obtain economic and social profitability if an agile, attractive and functional service adapted to the needs of Lorca is provided, but the socialists become to run into an urban transport model driven by the PP "low cost", continua, unattractive and that will be doomed to failure, as follows from the memory to be presented at the ordinary municipal Plenary Session in July.

The councilor of the PSOE in the City of Lorca, David Romera, has indicated that his municipal group "will support the municipalization of urban public bus transport in Lorca" to consider it "a perfectly valid option to improve the conditions of provision of an essential service in the city that currently the PP, with its poor management, has become a ghost, offering buses very low levels of occupation given the serious deficiencies that are suffered daily by many Lorca, especially the lack of information of the service, of infrastructures in the stops, the continuous delays in the frequencies of passage and the mechanical problems of the vehicles ".

As a result, recalls the mayor, the number of passengers using urban transport annually in Lorca has fallen in recent years by 50%, "against the national uptrend (the number of users grew by 4.7% in 2017) and regional (increased by 10.9%).

Romera affirms that the municipalization of urban transport is a form of direct management that is reflected both in Law 7/1985 (Regulating the Bases of Local Regime) and in Art. 97 of Royal Legislative Decree 781/1986, because " If the City Council considers an agile, attractive urban transport model that is adapted to the real needs of the population, it can achieve an important economic and social return that benefits the whole city, making it more friendly, more sustainable and less dependent on the private vehicle. "

Remember that in Spain there are about 30 municipalities (15 provincial capitals) whose urban transport is managed directly by the municipality (Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia, Seville, Palma, San Sebastian, Santander, Vitoria, Gijón, Jerez, Tarrasa, Reus. ..);

of them, Valencia and Seville are the cities where the number of travelers in urban transport has grown the most in 2017. That is to say, "the municipalization of this service is a feasible option as opposed to others such as the concession to private companies, whose profitability always It will revert in the city and in the quality of life of its neighbors, as long as it offers an attractive service that gives confidence and quality to the users ".

In this sense, David Romera has offered the assessment that will make his Municipal Group in the ordinary municipal Plenary corresponding to the month of July, in relation to the presentation by the Government team of the PP of the report on social aspects, legal, technical and financial for the municipalization of urban passenger transport in Lorca, which is ultimately the model that the PP wants to implement in the municipality and socialists as "continuista, unattractive and that is doomed to failure" because it is nothing more than "an exact extension of the current model".

For all this, from the PSOE is going to ask the PP government team to proceed to a "general rethinking" urban transport model that wants to implement in Lorca since "besides being simplistic and not very functional, is not adapted to the real needs of the population of Lorca ", so" we will continue to have a phantom urban transport that is characterized by the existence of a series of vehicles that swarm through the city because neither the schedules, the itineraries nor the expected frequencies they are in line with the demands of the population ", something that was already denounced by the PSOE when the specifications of the last (failed) concession were drafted.

Romera believes that the PP urban transport model for Lorca "is not what the city needs because it is neither attractive nor ambitious";

on the contrary, "it is short-term, it is a" low cost "model where the schedules and frequencies are not adapted to the needs of the citizens but to the availability of use of the just five buses planned to serve 11 urban lines that oblige the population to make continuous transshipments ", and it is asked how 11 lines can be served, some with very long itineraries, with just five vehicles (three of 12 meters and two microbuses), with very tight arrival and departure times without taking into account the Logical incidences that urban traffic can cause, which will lead to continuous delays in waiting times.

Likewise, it requests that the main line that backbone the city, Line 1 (Apolonia-General Hospital Rafael Méndez) has a frequency of 15 minutes with four vehicles on weekdays (and 30 minutes on weekends) to make it profitable, in front of the 30 minutes posed (one hour on weekends to be served by only one bus);

also, denounces that there is no connection with the train and bus stations to look for intermodality, nor with the new service area of ​​Sutullena (el Gato);

neither does the passage of buses through Pérez Casas and Nogalte streets;

there are lines whose itineraries overlap, compared to the Barrios Altos that are completely isolated as well as the Historic Quarter, which has no direct connection with the neighborhoods of the city or with nearby councils.

It also demands special rates for employees who work in the industrial estates of Serrata and Los Peñones, who have been left out against those who work in Saprelorca, as well as an urban line to the core of La Hoya, the most populated municipality council and important economic center.

In short, for David Romera, from the PSOE "urban transport has to become a cornerstone of economic and social development present and future of Lorca", so, "if you are going to proceed to the municipalization of it, we have to be able to design a transport model adapted to the real needs of Lorca to be modern, attractive and functional "and improve the quality of life in a very congested city that has high levels of ozone air pollution, one of whose main causes are road traffic.

Therefore, "from the PSOE we are going to ask the PP Government team in the ordinary plenary of July, to rethink all its proposal in order not to lose again the great opportunity to create a new and efficient urban transport that again be used by Lorca, and leave behind the inefficient current system that the PP seems to want to perpetuate by not considering it a social and environmental priority.

Source: PSOE Lorca