Subscribe in a reader
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Car Free Day in Tenerife
The traffic jams in Tenerife are legendary and getting worse, but I don't imagine there will be an easy solution to the problem, least of all a lukewarm nod in the direction of, El Día sin coche (Car Free Day), that is, apparently, celebrated every year on September 22nd. That was today, Tuesday, September 25th, here in Tenerife (working on Canary Time :)
And to be honest, we haven't noticed any evidence of it being observed, but then that would require that people know in advance, which I doubt they did and that there was a public transport system fully up to the job, which there certainly isn't.
The culmination of European Mobility Week, was apparently a farce when celebrated here in 2003. The town hall in Santa Cruz closed a few roads in the capital - not even half - most of which are pedestrianized to start with. ATAN go on to say that they were sure local councillors would be going to the various activities planned around the day in cars, official ones at that.
Yet a recent study undertaken by the council of Public Works and Transport of the Canarian Government, indicated that the number of cars in the archipelago increased by 83% between 1991 and 2003.
Furthermore, greenhouse gas emissions have increased in the archipelago more than in any other region of Spain, in concrete, by 81.8% between 1990 and 2004, despite the fact that the target permitted by the Kyoto agreement allowed for an increase of just 15% between 1990 and 2010. In Tenerife alone, cars emit 100,000 tons more CO2 per year than the refinery!
El parque automovilístico de Canarias ha aumentado un 83% desde 1991
Los coches de la Isla emiten 100.000 toneladas más de CO2 al año que la Refinería
And to be honest, we haven't noticed any evidence of it being observed, but then that would require that people know in advance, which I doubt they did and that there was a public transport system fully up to the job, which there certainly isn't.
The culmination of European Mobility Week, was apparently a farce when celebrated here in 2003. The town hall in Santa Cruz closed a few roads in the capital - not even half - most of which are pedestrianized to start with. ATAN go on to say that they were sure local councillors would be going to the various activities planned around the day in cars, official ones at that.
Yet a recent study undertaken by the council of Public Works and Transport of the Canarian Government, indicated that the number of cars in the archipelago increased by 83% between 1991 and 2003.
Furthermore, greenhouse gas emissions have increased in the archipelago more than in any other region of Spain, in concrete, by 81.8% between 1990 and 2004, despite the fact that the target permitted by the Kyoto agreement allowed for an increase of just 15% between 1990 and 2010. In Tenerife alone, cars emit 100,000 tons more CO2 per year than the refinery!
El parque automovilístico de Canarias ha aumentado un 83% desde 1991
Los coches de la Isla emiten 100.000 toneladas más de CO2 al año que la Refinería
