One of the flags of the progressive government that led the Valencia City Council between 2015 and May 2023 was the commitment to cycling and the change in mobility. In fact, former mayor Joan Ribó tried to get him re-elected by riding a bicycle on election posters. The opening of bike lanes generated quite a few tensions in the Compromís and PSPV government team (especially in the first years) and fierce criticism from the opposition and, also, from some residents and merchants due to the sudden changes that were softened .
The new local executive that emerged from the 28-M polls (a PP in the minority with the supposed external support of the councilors with exclusive dedication to Vox) is clearly committed to a different model. Without repudiating the bike lanes, at least in front of the gallery, the mayor of València, María José Catalá, yesterday visited the peripheral neighborhood of San Isidro to see first-hand "the first action of many" in terms of mobility to convert a bike lane into a cycle street where pedestrians, vehicles and bicycles coexist safely.
In this way, the current bike lane will be cut and part of the surface it now occupies will become a cycle lane where bicycles and vehicles will converge, without any separation.
Catalá justified the action in a neighborhood request and in the need to end "an impressive bottleneck." "This is the first of many actions to convert a bike lane into a cycle street and make mobility more fluid and more will come," Catalá said.
The objective of the intervention, the mayor acknowledged, is "to gain space for the vehicle, but also with measures to generate safety for pedestrians and making bicycles coexist in complete safety without generating collapses."
His team confirmed that an audit has been launched to study possible changes in some sections of the bike lane network for safety reasons. During the campaign, the PP did not speak of directly eliminating these infrastructures, but of introducing modifications in order to ensure the safety of pedestrians and cyclists and facilitate the flow of traffic. In the minds of many is the Kingdom of Valencia bike lane, highly criticized during the time of the PP in opposition, and those of the large avenues of Primado Reig, Constitución and Pérez Galdós.
Some actions for which the PP has the support of Vox, although this partner (who even campaigned with a drill to demonstrate his opposition to bike lanes) was not necessary to execute these first measures.
Little by little, the new city model advocated by the Valencian PP is coming into view. On Wednesday this newspaper already explained the neighborhood unrest in some neighborhoods of Valencia due to the local government's decision not to opt for the removal of the Pérez Galdós tunnel as planned to renaturalize one of the main arteries of the city. Also at the weekend, the City Council's decision not to appeal the ruling on Benimaclet's PAI was announced.
Regarding the changes in the bike lane, the municipal spokesperson for Compromís and former mayor, Joan Ribó, assured that Europe "does not provide funding to eliminate bike lanes, but to eliminate cars" and warned Catalá that "it is going in the opposite direction - as that is done in Europe - and the mess is going to stick".
For her part, the socialist spokesperson in the Valencia City Council, Sandra Gómez, regretted the path taken by the Catalan government towards the dismantling of pedestrian spaces and bicycle lanes in the city, which endangers, she stressed, the European green capital. that the previous government achieved at the hands of the socialists.
"We find it regrettable that the City Council, the government with its mayor at the head, is dedicating itself to dismantling pedestrian spaces or bicycle lanes and, furthermore, that it brags about it and says that it does it directly so that the private vehicle gains space in to the detriment of the bicycle or the pedestrian,” said Gómez.
