- CIVITAS
- SOLUCIONES DE MOVILIDAD
- Communities
- Projects
- EVENTOS
- Events
- SERVICIOS
- ACERCA DE CIVITAS
- Flickr
- Youtube
Mass tourism is impacting European destinations and challenging local representatives. Despite the prosperity and urban development that increased tourism can bring with it, residents’ best interests should also not be overlooked in the pursuit of economic growth. Mobility planning can play a key role in reconciling the needs and requirements of both citizens and tourists.
The aquarium Poema del Mar was opened in December 2017 and is the new major attraction of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. It is located in the north of the city, an area full of touristic and leisure attractions such as the Mercado del Puerto, Castillo de la Luz, Parque de Santa Catalina, etc. Moreover, the new aquarium lies alongside the Cruise Terminal and just 200 metres away from Las Canteras beach.
This area of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is the most congested area of the city due to its particular urban structure: a narrow strip of land joining the Port of Las Palmas and the Isleta neighbourhood with the southern area of the city.
In fact, that isthmus is the gateway to the Port of Las Palmas and the most important industrial park of the city (El Sebadal). The main highway of the island (GC-1) passes through the isthmus and shapes the urban space in this area.
Within CIVITAS DESTINATIONS a Laboratory Area has been defined to test innovative solutions that could improve sustainable mobility for both tourists and residents. The Laboratory Area covers the surrounding area of the new Aquarium.
The SUMP methodology was used here to overcome the urban mobility challenges of this new touristic attraction. The goal was to integrate tourists’ mobility management into the city’s existing planning tools and meet the needs and requirements of both citizens and tourists. The SUMP methodology has proved to be also useful to address tourists’ mobility challenges in cities.
Objectives:
Cinesi SLU with the collaboration of key local stakeholders – the Municipality of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Guaguas Municipales – drafted a Mobility Plan in 2017 with a set of technical, infrastructure, policy-based, and soft measures.
This Action Plan included the following measures/actions to achieve the declared goals and specific objectives:
Goal 1
To reduce car use:
Goal 2
To encourage a shift towards more sustainable modes:
Goal 3
To tackle traffic congestion:
Finally, the Action Plan also includes an improvement of traffic routes.
The objective is to avoid crossing trajectories amongst all traffic flows in the area (visitors to the new aquarium, shopping centre visitors, taxis carrying cruise ship passengers, etc.).
The Municipality, Guaguas Municipales and Cinesi SLU drafted a stakeholder engagement strategy in order to foster a close cooperation and to ensure a real implementation of the measures included in the Action Plan.
Despite the needs and interests of all stakeholders involved in the project were different, the most relevant success factor of this project has been that all of them agreed on the need of improving this area of the city.
The lessons learnt in this process are summarised below.
Despite not all actions included in the Action Plan having been implemented yet, the measure is in operation and data for evaluation is being collected.
In autumn 2019 and spring 2020 the CIVITAS DESTINATIONS project (measure LPA2.2) monitored and evaluated how these new mobility solutions are influencing the mobility patterns (and behaviour) of tourists in the Laboratory Area.