After leaving Aaron at the Calvo Sotelo public school, located on Puente La Reina street in the Las Tablas neighborhood, his father Alonso laments that he works at Nuevos Ministerios "and I have no human way of riding a bicycle and that is super near". This complaint of lack of means with good roads and public transport to get to the center is common among many residents who live in the aforementioned neighborhood, north of the capital.
Not only the residents of Las Tablas suffer from this type of deficiencies, but those of other similar urban projects, such as Sanchinarro or Montecarmelo, experience similar situations. These are neighborhoods that were built 20 years ago, with large avenues and housing estates with spacious apartments, but much infrastructure is still lacking. Most of the unbuilt plots are for public endowments that do not arrive.
Despite the lack of some services, such as a medical center or a police station, the prices of apartments have skyrocketed above 450,000 euros on average (to around 4,000 euros per square meter), according to the Fotocasa portal. And the rents exceed 1,000 euros per month.
In this context of trying to improve the lives of its citizens, in a pre-election campaign, the Madrid City Council has launched a citizen consultation to see what problems citizens living in these areas north of the capital have to improve.
Since its creation, in Las Tablas only two bus lines pass through the neighborhood and there is a metro stop, rather close to the Telefónica headquarters, where every day some 12,000 employees arrive in said mini-city to work. There is also a light metro, with nine stops to Pinar de Chamartín, but it almost always goes without passengers. As for fast means of transport to reach many parts of the city, there are few. For this reason, most of the residents of Las Tablas go to work in their private car to get there and return as soon as possible. Others have opted for telecommuting, if their company allows it. Even the almost 4,000 employees of BBVA, another of the large business corporations that also has its headquarters in the aforementioned neighborhood, have staggered entry and exit times so as not to clog the three road entrances to the neighborhood. Its building, La Vela, has a capacity for 8,900 people, but many choose to telework.
They are not ghost neighborhoods, like Pocero in Toledo, because there is a lot of life, but quite a few basic infrastructures are conspicuous by their absence. Of course, it has 4 public schools and several subsidized and private ones. Two public nurseries (one from the City Council and another from the Community of Madrid) and quite a few private ones, as well as only one publicly owned institute. It also has a headquarters in this PAU, the National Distance Education University (UNED).
Alonso laments that when he picks up the boy from school in the afternoon "I have to take him to the Fuencarral neighborhood for athletics, being able to have a sports center here, like all the towns in Spain have." Another parent from the same school, Javier, complains about the same lack of sports infrastructure: "We miss a sports center with an indoor pool." Most of the children and adults who attend swimming classes have to enroll in the Estudiantes subsidized school, whose prices are much higher than those of any sports facility in the Town Hall, but it has an indoor pool, which is open practically all year round.
Las Tablas also does not have a police station, a cultural center, well-kept grass esplanades for children to play, a library, and the medical clinic is more than a year and a half late in its construction. Its inauguration is scheduled for before the elections on May 28, according to sources from the Community of Madrid. Nor does it have almost no infrastructure for the leisure of the elderly.
Children's playgrounds are another pending issue for the City Council. They have not been renovated since they were installed and their swings, slides or castles are already obsolete and many of them without paint or shaded areas by the time summer arrives. On the contrary, in the area of the Hospital de la Paz and the five skyscrapers of Madrid, a neighborhood in which octogenarians live and not far from these northern neighborhoods, "new parks with cork floors and swings have been installed very cool", insists Alonso, despite the fact that here, he emphasizes, we pay "a very high IBI tax". "We also usually take our children to Alcobendas, a municipality very close, but which has some amazing themed playgrounds," says Rita, mother of two children.
"We also don't have a market to be able to buy fruit, meat and other foods that are not from large chains," says Sabrina. "Not to mention the plot awarded for the library, where the sign for its construction has been hanging for years and not even the first stone has been laid," says Diana, another citizen, who has been living in the capital for years with the family of she.
Another resident of the neighbourhood, Cristina, who has lived in the area with her three children and her husband Javier for some time, adds that "warmer urban planning is necessary. That is, squares with benches, monuments, shops, shade, parks for children older, since those that exist are very childish, sports courts...". However, she insists that "what I see worst is the issue of traffic." In her opinion, "urban planning is badly designed with prohibited crossings on giant avenues without traffic, which forces us to take very long turns and people end up skipping the signs."
For the executive of Telefónica Rita -a neighbor of the neighborhood for a few years, although her country of origin is Portugal- there is also a lack of leisure activities, "such as a cinema or toy libraries that are open on weekends to be able to leave the children while we let's air or run errands." It is true that Rita is a single mother by choice, her family lives far away and sometimes she needs help, which does not exist, to care for her little ones.
In the opinion of Mihaela, another inhabitant of the neighborhood, registered with her family since 2009, considers that "a park for dogs is missing because in the few green areas that there are we cannot sit because of the poop of these animals." She also on her wish list considers that Las Tablas is missing "more benches on the sidewalks, containers for recycling oils or household appliances, such as irons or blenders...". In addition, she tells Mihaela "we need more space for the urban garden, which we already have, but it is very small." And finally she says "more activities for children in some cultural space".
The requests of the families are constantly repeated. The Galician Belén, who lives with her two children and her husband in the neighborhood, demands "a health center, a cultural center, a library, a municipal sports center, a market and better distribution of public transport." And already for asking, Fatima, who lives with her son, demands "a language school." "Or more local businesses or even a kiosk to buy the press, since we have to go to the gas station for the newspapers," she says.
