It’s ten to two and you’re still on the motorway heading for a lunch date in Marbella town centre. But which exit do you take? The arch road is ruled out from the start as it’s not an option from the motorway. That leaves a choice between the Ojén road or the bus station. You choose the second and regret it immediately. The queues reach the motorway itself and you have to wait for several minutes for the traffic to start crawling into the town centre.
This dilemma is shared every day by the hundreds of drivers who find themselves trapped on the two main routes into Marbella: the Avenida del Trapiche (the bus station exit); and the road leading to Calle Serenata (the La Cañada shopping centre exit). Both options have become obsolete; the roads can no longer cope with the growing volume of traffic.
The Traffic Department at the Town Hall is well aware of the problem. “It’s more of a problem with intersection design than with traffic”, points out a municipal worker consulted by SUR.
“There is simply more traffic wanting to use these routes than the roads can cope with”, explains Eloy Ortega, director of the Transport and Traffic department, who adds that these roads in question are not the responsibility of the Town Hall but of the Junta de Andalucía or the Ministry of Development.
One of the main problems is that, in both cases, traffic heading for the town centre hits a crossroads with traffic lights soon after leaving the motorway, and so the queues build up quickly. A solution could be to increase the distance between the two points or to create a new road layout, diverting traffic away from the junction.
These ideas will soon be put down on paper as the municipal traffic department is drawing up a road safety plan including solutions to improve traffic flow. “One idea is to replace the traffic lights with roundabouts”, says Ortega. Neither has the local authority ruled out the option of, in the mid term, taking traffic on Calle Serenata underground to avoid the crossroads with Avenida Arias de Velasco.
Whose responsibility?
Nevertheless any changes made to the Avenida de Trapiche exit would in the end be the responsibility of the Central Government due to their proximity to the motorway. In the case of Calle Serenata, this still forms part of the Ojén road which belongs to the Junta as the Town Hall never applied to take the urban stretch over after the motorway was built. Now the local authority says it is prepared to take responsibility for the road, but only after the Junta de Andalucía has carried out the necessary improvements. The Town Hall is now hoping that the regional and central governments will collaborate with their improvement plans.
