Much Too Much ...

Several years ago now, I can recall a report which identified Mallorca as having one of the highest levels of car ownership - if not the highest level - anywhere in Spain. All things are relative of course, and this level was relative - to the population. This ownership, and not only cars but also vans and other vehicles, dipped during the years of recession. Or at least the number of vehicles on the road declined. The Council of Mallorca, keepers of the island's main roads, have let us know that roads in and out of Palma now have traffic levels on a scale that they were pre-crisis; higher in fact. For some years, the levels were lower.

Perceptions get us only so far, but for what it's worth, my perception is of a significant increase in traffic during the early tourism season. I am not alone in having observed just how busy Alcudia has been. This perception of busyness is primarily a function of road traffic. Throw in all the cyclists, of which there are great numbers, plus delivery trucks, coaches and buses, and the April roads have been in the bedlam category.

Lining the main road on most days are rows of hire cars. One presumes there is now some arrangement with the town hall and/or the Council of Mallorca. Cars can be parked wherever an owner fancies, so long as the parking places are permitted, but there is such a thing as commercial use of the roads. Not so long ago, the town hall made it clear that anyone parking a car with a for-sale sign on it was liable for a fine. The roads, those which aren't the Council's responsibility, are town hall property. If they're to be used for commercial reasons, then there has to be permission - and payment.

The volume of traffic owes a great deal to the number of hire cars. While there is rental all year, in the early season it is particularly attractive. The nature of early-season tourism determines this. Increasingly, so do the preferences of tourists and the supply to meet these preferences. Holiday rental accommodation does not equate exactly to the number of hire cars, but there is unquestionably an equation. It is little wonder that the car-rental business association has thrown its lot in with the Aptur holiday rentals' association in seeking a liberal deal under the new legislation.

Already there is news of the enormous influx of hire cars. Barcelona and Valencia ports have been chock-full of vehicles being shipped to Mallorca and the Balearics. This was the same last year. Cars which had been destined for Turkey ended up here. Ships were apparently performing mid-Mediterranean U-turns and heading for the safe haven of Palma. The roads thus became saturated, along with everything else - beaches, for instance.

But that was more a story about summer. In the early and late seasons, visitors set off for the island's attractions. Included among these are the likes of Sa Calobra and Formentor. The roads to both fall into the somewhat scary category, a scariness made scarier by negotiating a bend only to be confronted by a mass of cyclists, shortly followed by a bus. Undeterred, the visitors keep going (it is pretty difficult to turn round after all), and arrive at, for instance, the lighthouse at Formentor. Which is when they find that they have little alternative but to turn round. There's nowhere to park.

Limits are to be introduced to the number of cars going to Formentor, and not only the lighthouse. How this will be policed, I am unsure, but limits are an inevitable consequence of the success of places like Formentor. People want to go there because they've heard so much about it: or seen it, if only Roper's La Fortaleza. It's a similar story with Sa Calobra, with Lluc, with certain unspoiled beaches. Environmentalists Terraferida are aghast at the tribes of young tourists pitching up on isolated coves and enjoying themselves. And it's still only April.

The Council of Mallorca, we learn, is considering prohibiting car access to Sa Calobra and to the Port of Valldemossa. Escorca town hall has already decided to start charging for street parking in Sa Calobra (and elsewhere). Valldemossa town hall has introduced charges for parking coaches. In Santanyi, there is to be access-denied to cars going to certain coves. In various parts of the island, the shuttle bus has become the mode du jour for transport. Es Trenc has its shuttle. Cala Varques in Manacor is likely to get its. Formentor will probably be served by one from Puerto Pollensa.

All of these places are victims of their own success and of readily available information that recommends them. But they are unable to cope. The infrastructure doesn't exist and for the most part can't exist. There's much too much. Limits are the only solution.

A Troubled Bridge Over Water: Porto Cristo

Manacor's mayor, Antoni Pastor, has bowed to the inevitable. The bridge in Porto Cristo, the "puente del Riuet", will come a-tumbling down. With its demolition, a chapter will close (though don't bank on it) that can be traced back to 1968 and the antecedents that led to the bridge's construction being started in 2003. Pastor, increasingly under personal pressure caused by his being fined for not complying with the order for the town hall to get on with demolishing the bridge, has fought a populist corner to keep something that not everyone in Porto Cristo will be sad to see go.

There have been protests aimed at preventing the bridge's demolition, and the publicity that these have attracted have deflected attention away from the fact that homeowners were directly affected by waking up one day to find a damn great bridge outside their windows.

These owners have had to endure noise and loss of light. They have had to pay for double glazing to try and shut out noise but have also had to keep windows shut during the summer. They have had to keep lights on all day. They have seen the value of their properties drop by some 90%. They have lived with the permanent fear that an accident might end up with a coach parked in a living-room.

The lawsuits have been many, the compensation has not been that great, the cost of pulling the thing down will run to around 900,000 euros, not much less than what it cost to put it up in the first place.

Manacor town hall, faced with footing the bill, had argued, among other things, that the bridge was not illegal, as has been deemed to be the case by the Balearics Supreme Court. It was built under an agreement between the town hall, the Council of Mallorca and the regional government, and yet it (the town hall) is expected to have to pay for it to come down.

With some justification, the town hall has a right to feel a bit miffed, not just because of the cost but also because of an absence of support from the other authorities, notably the Council of Mallorca. There is some debate as to whether the bridge is or isn't included in its plan for "carreteras". In 2009 the then director for the island's highways announced that it was. In theory, this should have put an end to the whole conflict, but now it would appear that it isn't included in the plan. The likelihood exists that a new bridge will have to be built.

The saga of the bridge is utter madness. At a combined cost of two million euros, that for building it and then knocking it down, Porto Cristo will not have a bridge, other than an old one that is inadequate for purpose. Until such a time as a new one arises, if it does, there will be congestion, and in the short term there will be chaos as the demolition work will carry on into the tourist season. And if a new bridge is built, it will cost God knows how much and be proceeded by the predictable and lengthy arguments that will themselves attract cost and delay.

What makes the bridge's demolition all the more absurd and costly is that services - water, sewage, phones and electricity - will all have to be diverted. This alone will amount to a quarter of a million euros. But the absurdity is heightened further when one considers quite why the bridge was built as it was. The result of this was, as should have been obvious, the impact on residences; an impact that led the Supreme Court to order the demolition.

One of the main reasons for the bridge being built was the traffic jams and the difficulties that coaches, heading for the Caves of Drach, had in negotiating the roads. These difficulties will return, making Porto Cristo once more a traffic nightmare in summer.

The homeowners will be pleased and so they should be. The past few years have been intolerable, but in a way, other than just because of the alleviation of traffic problems, the bridge should be allowed to stay. To stay as a monument. A monument to the stupidity that will mean it costs much the same to pull it down as it took to put it up.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.