"My son takes more than an hour to return from the San Fernando public institute, located on the Colmenar highway, at kilometer 13.5, as there is no urban public transport that stops in Las Tablas," laments Paloma Escudero, mother of a 12 year old young man. This complaint is repeated in dozens of families whose children go to the Ciudad Escolar Educational Complex, which brings together three secondary education institutes: IES Ciudad Escolar, IES Hotel Escuela and IES San Fernando. These secondary educational centers are attended by young people from neighborhoods such as Montecarmelo, Las Tablas, Sanchinarro, Valdebebas or Mirasierra who choose to study in this secondary educational complex.
Every day, 1,400 young people from towns such as Alcobendas or San Sebastián de los Reyes, but especially from the northern neighborhoods of Madrid, come to San Fernando alone, as it has four ESO courses, two high school courses, training cycles and FP.
"In the morning, we have organized some families and we take them in cars because it takes 7 minutes to get there," continues Escudero. The problem - this mother explains - "is that each kid leaves at a different time depending on the extracurricular activities that she chooses." And in those cases, she clarifies, "either her family goes to look for him or he returns on the Community of Madrid buses, which do not stop in the neighborhoods."
The Ampa of the San Fernando educational center has organized routes, but the price is 69.5 euros per month and some families cannot bear this expense or it does not compensate them if the return service is not useful for staying later. In addition, some young academic courses have been left without a place on these routes and have had no choice but to go on their own.
"We are not requesting that they put a school route, but rather that the Municipal Transportation Company (EMT) facilitate access to our center," explains Miriam Martín, president of the Ampa of the San Fernando Institute. For her part, María José Peña, mother of a 16-year-old girl at the Ciudad Escolar center, explains that the students of that institute "even have it worse because there are no bus routes organized by families, so yes or They do have to go and return on their own.
The families' goal is to stop the city buses that go to the educational complex in the northern neighborhoods of the capital, not just the intercity ones.
One option would be to expand line 170, which connects the neighborhoods of Arroyo del Fresno, Montecarmelo, Las Tablas and Sanchinarro or the creation of a new bus line that connects these PAUs not only with the San Fernando institute, but also with the Cantoblanco hospital. , the La Fora Psychiatric Hospital, the Doctor González Bueno nursing home and the Ifise comprehensive training institute.
With this reality, the Ampa of San Fernando has requested a meeting with the new councilor of the area José Antonio Martínez-Páramo to explain the problem and remind him that on January 25 it was approved unanimously in the plenary session of the Municipal Board of the district a proposal that urged the competent organizations to create or expand an urban bus line.
Helena Martín, also a member of the Ampa del San Fernando, clarifies that "students taking an urban bus and then another interurban bus can go and return to the institute, but taking a path that makes no sense, since they have to go to Plaza Castilla or until the Ramón y Cajal Hospital stop and then go back. "This long journey takes students more than an hour by public transport, when from the neighborhood it can be reached in 7 minutes by car," repeats Paloma Escudero.
