The inhabitants of the parish of O Hío, in Cangas do Morrazo (Pontevedra), have been complaining for years that the influx of cars to go to the beaches in the summer means that many vehicles end up parked in areas where they disrupt and even hinder traffic. .access to the houses. But this summer, the visitors multiplied, explains a spokeswoman for the neighborhood association, Mercedes Villar, and the situation became tense. So they decided to organize themselves to go out into the street and protest, causing a traffic jam that was not (or not only) due to the number of cars: they continuously crossed several pedestrian crossings to prevent traffic from moving forward.
The first of these demonstrations took place during the long weekend of August 15. They repeated it seven days later, in the most central part of the parish, O Igrexario, on three pedestrian crossings. They spent about half an hour crossing without stopping. This second time, more people gathered to protest against the effects of tourist overcrowding in an area where many people come in the summer, both from the surrounding area and from further afield. The neighbors are asking the authorities and administrations to find a solution. The city council has called them to a meeting in September.
In a summer of protests due to the pressure of a growing number of visitors to different parts of Spain, Villar emphasizes that he does not want people to stop frequenting the area, but he asks for order and for the numbers to adapt to an environment. with narrow roads, curves and, in some sections, without sidewalks. And it is a peninsula in which the entrance and exit are in the same place. “There is no road safety. People walk along the ditches because there are no sidewalks and they feel restricted. There are those who do not leave the house because of that. There are traffic jams. If you want to go to work at certain times, you have to leave with more time. They occupy the main road and the access roads to the beaches, which are often one-way,” says this neighbor.
With the arrival of summer, he continues, vehicles are parked “on bends, on yellow lines, in the driveways of houses and garages.” All this creates “a situation of insecurity and danger” and even compromises the passage of emergency vehicles. He assures that there have been cases of neighbors who had to go and get an ambulance for a planned transfer and who found that the exit of their house was blocked or that the number of cars prevented the medical vehicle from arriving at the scheduled time.
Villar adds that the pressure exerted by the large number of visitors also leads to “uncivil” behavior, such as throwing trash on the roads and in parking lots. And in a deterioration of the roads that are not prepared for so much traffic. “We want an orderly, educated and environmentally friendly tourism. It is a paradise, but paradises also collapse,” he emphasizes.
He believes that this growing popularity is largely due to social media: “It is sold as a beauty without people, but now that is not true.” He says that in fact, the beaches have become so crowded that many locals have stopped going on weekends or wait until those who come from other areas leave. “It is not a day or two, you go through it. It is every weekend, on public holidays and also during the week,” he protests.
Villar explains that the idea of protesting by crossing the crosswalks comes from another mobilization of the neighborhood’s residents: the one demanding that a doctor be reassigned to the O Hío office, a health service they lost with the pandemic. The neighbors’ spokesperson says that it was in these concentrations, convened every other Saturday, that they realized that by crossing and causing traffic jams, they were able to draw attention to their “boredom.”
