Marooned in an urbanisation

As someone who did not learn to drive until I was almost 30, I spent most of my youth in various cities around the UK having to go everywhere on public transport or walk.

Although this was frustrating at times, putting up with delays, cancellations, overcrowding, dirty seats, watching out for potential muggers, etc. – I was still able to get to and from all sorts of jobs, lead an active social life and visit people in other regions.

This ground to a halt when I came to Spain 21 years ago and found myself marooned in what was then the isolated Orihuela Costa urbanisation of Villamartín. The low wages and prohibitive cost of taxis restricted my professional and social horizons to a few bars on the plaza and even going to the beach required begging a lift.

It was lively enough in the summer but when winter came, cabin fever swiftly set in and I became desperate to explore further afield.

There was a very occasional bus to Torrevieja and Alicante from a stop at La Zenia, just a few kilometres walk down the road, which provided an invaluable escape route to remind me that there was a wider world out there. Sometimes being stuck in an urbanisation full of expats I had to remind myself I was actually living in Spain.

If you wanted to explore further afield, you would need a train, and the train tracks to Torrevieja had been abandoned long ago. You had to get to Orihuela city (which is 35 kilometres away and also without a bus service).

Over the next few years the pace and scale of construction activity was breathtaking; going for a local walk I would get lost in areas I thought I knew as more urbanisations had sprung up seemingly overnight. Pretty soon Orihuela Costa had become an endless conurbation which stretched to meet the equally rapidly extending housing estates of Torrevieja.

Despite this, there was still no additional public transport and the increasing population, especially in the summer, has meant that the number of taxis – if you could afford them – is so insufficient that you commonly have to wait at least an hour, if one comes at all. This is no use at all if you have to rely on a taxi to get to work (aside from the fact it would cost you more than an hour’s wages).

Since it is a tourist area, holidaymakers (and more than a few residents) on a night out often pile into their hire cars quite drunk, and there have been a number of horrific and sometimes fatal accidents.

For me, there was no alternative and it took about a year of saving and learning enough Spanish to decipher the equivalent of the Highway Code, but eventually I passed my driving test and since then have never looked back (except when changing lanes, otherwise I can use my mirrors).

I discovered the dozens of different towns around us which I had heard about but never visited, learned about the area and its people, culture and politics, and within a few years managed to get a job that taught me even more - which I am still doing now.

When Orihuela council finally introduced a bus service to the coast, it was (and still is) completely insufficient. There is one minibus every hour (in the summer – much less frequent for the rest of the year) and the timetables only say when it starts its route – you have to guess when it might pass any given stop, if it stops at all as they often drive right past if they are full or running late!

Now with my own family I have watched the children and their friends grow up and leave school facing exactly the same problems. They cannot earn enough to pay for driving lessons because the only jobs available to them are on their doorsteps and so seasonal that even a few hours a week is optimistic in the winter.

For young people to find work they have to be able to travel; even to take advantage of any of the training courses available to the unemployed, they have to go to Orihuela city.

Demands by Costa residents that Orihuela council provide a bus service to the city fell on deaf ears, or were met with excuses that they did not have the authority because the route would have to pass through other municipalities (due to Orihuela’s extraordinary size and bizarre configuration of its borders).

In the end it has taken 21 years, a change of regional government and the entire legislature of the current progressive coalition to improve the situation. New lines are going to be opened all over the Vega Baja and even the ‘island’ urbanisation o Entre Naranjos, between Orihuela’s city and coast, will have a connection to the outside world after a decade of campaigning by its residents.

This is a start, and has been made on the basis that the authorities recognised the need to provide more environmentally sustainable modes of transport, but there is still much more that needs to be done.

There is talk of reviving the train line to Torrevieja, but I expect I would qualify for a pensioner’s discount by the time that becomes a reality.