Dissuading cars from passing through restricted areas
A municipal infomation campaign directed to all car users entering the area wants to sensitise the public and raise awareness on saving the central superblock from unnecessary traffic.
The City Council is going to start an information and awareness campaign to discourage private cars to access to central superblock. The campaign will start just after Easter by sending a personalised letter to all car users who are making inappropriate use of that space. The access to this area is in fact limited to emergency and service vehicles, cars accessing or leaving garages and vehicles carrying out loading and unloading procedures. “We want to eliminate unwanted traffic little by little by establishing a set of disincentives,” said the Councillor for the Environment, Idoia Garmendia. The measure tries to avoid passing traffic in Magdalena, Prado, Virgen Blanca, Mateo Moraza, Olaguibel, Fueros, General Alava and Cadena y Eleta streets. The City Council has installed five cameras that control both the access and exit of cars within the superblock. Using an algorithm, cameras detect if the passing vehicle is trying to shortcut or if it is a driver who goes to the garage or it is a delivery truck. "In the political and technical committee for mobility we have decided to promote this campaign under the CIVITAS project and Mobility Plan," said Garmendia. According to a study done in recent months, the Consistory has detected about 400 inappropriate daily entries to the area. The Councillor has confirmed that. "The campaign does not have tax collection effort. It simply responds to the proposals of the Mobility Plan and seeks to enforce a measure proposed as a development of the Plan. We hope this campaign will be successful enough and that the penalties will be minimal," assured Garmendia. Sharing the same hope, we think that this information campaign has a great chance to be successful!
Author: Gonzalez Argote Roberto
