BENIDORM STREET CONFUSION
THE HEART of Benidorm’s old town is experiencing traffic mayhem after the direction of traffic in a number of streets was reversed on Wednesday. The scheme, proposed by councillor for transport and mobility José Ramón González de Zárate, was approved back in October last year by the Local Police, who were certainly out in force to deal with disgruntled and irate drivers.
The catalyst for the change was the part-pedestrianisation of Calle Tomás Ortuño – the main road running parallel with Avenida Ruzafa, so necessitating some of the side roads linking the two to be reversed, in addition to roadworks and dropped kerbs being installed.
Many shopkeepers were unhappy, explaining to CBNews that this has already caused headaches for delivery drivers.
Likewise, taxi drivers were unhappy with the changes and vast parts blocked off for workmen, therefore dropping and collecting passengers was ‘challenging’. The direction of traffic in Calle Maravall, one of the few streets heading down towards the Poniente beach, has also been reversed, meaning that the only access down by car is now along the main Avenida de Almendros.
A local coach transfer company spokesperson also added that the town hall is very lax in notifying any route changes or road closures, causing havoc and frustration for their customers.
Residents in the area were definitely not happy. Pere Perez, who lives south of Calle Roldán-Puig Campana, complained that the council had forgotten about that zone, as no one seemed to have received notification about the change of direction, hence Wednesday morning the traffic was complete and utter chaos.
Other areas received notification but with a howling error, saying the changes came into effect on January 3, 2017.
Sr Perez's theory on how the council changes the street direction: "The municipal department for this area probably got together with the mobility councillor, and maybe with transport associations as well, and on a board similar to monopoly they rolled the dice to decide what streets changed direction."
Sr Perez reckons that the aim of the council is to have everybody park in El Moralet and get taxis and buses into town to get home, go to work or go shopping, doing away with traffic altogether.
He added: "Whoever came up with these changes for sure must live outside Benidorm."
CBNews tried to get hold of the councillor for mobility to ask if they had notified Google maps and Sat Nav companies of the changes, but as the paper went to press they had not had any reply.