“As far as usage goes, people are happy, we had always required a service like this to get to the hospital.” Amalia Campos, president of the Sanchinarro Neighborhood Association, says in her interview with Somos Madrid that she wants to start by clarifying one thing: the rapid bus responds to a need that residents have been asking for for years. Of course, once this issue is cleared up, the criticism begins: “This is having a huge and disastrous effect on travel in the neighborhood.”
The capital’s first rapid and priority bus line (BR1), which began its activity in May 2023, has been connecting the entire Valdebebas district to the Ramón Hospital since November of the same year (with its latest extension of 6 kilometers). y Cajal. The Madrid Municipal Transport Company (EMT) project has two collectors and 38 stops. It is a 100% electric line that operates with bus models similar in aesthetic to a modern tram and which connects the residential areas of Valdebebas and Sanchinarro to the Ramón y Cajal Hospital, a reference hospital center for residents of these neighborhoods to the east of the city. city.
“The problems were already visible when they announced the route. Ana de Austria Street was left as a single lane, with the traffic jams and safety risks that this generates on a road that houses a school and a health center,” explains Amalia. He denounces that “the gates that open onto this street have delivery problems or if an ambulance is needed”. According to this neighbor, “you have to cross the solid line and enter the bus lane, otherwise the alternative is to stay there forever”.
Neighborhood protests arose when the route was known and work began. However, once the express bus entered circulation, the main complaint came from the traffic lights which regulate its passage. The entire route in both directions is just over 31 kilometers, 19 of which take a completely separate lane from the rest of the traffic, with the aim of guaranteeing punctuality of the scheduled times. Traffic light priority has been established at intersections to ensure safety.
“Castile is vast,” replies Amalia when asked about the waiting time for drivers at this traffic light. He assures that “you can be detained there for up to 7 minutes”. The main “eternal” point is the intersection of Niceto Alcalá Zamora and Príncipe Carlos streets. Amalia believes that this ends up having an impact on traffic problems, but also on pollution: “The speed has been reduced, but the amount of gas emitted by the number of stopped cars is increasing. » However, according to City Hall data, pollution in Madrid is at a historically low level, according to measurement data for the month of October.
Another criticism comes from the location of the express bus shelters at the Sanchinarro crossing: “They are in the middle of the road, with no shade or refreshments nearby, so temperatures are very high in summer. Eventually, people escape and run when they see the bus coming. He also mentions the reduction of parking spaces.
In Valdebebas, on the other hand, there are hardly any complaints about the impact of the rapid bus. For Amalia, this is due to the urban design of one neighborhood in relation to the other: “In Valdebebas there are huge avenues already prepared for this. Sanchinarro, on the other hand, is an unstructured neighborhood, with very small avenues. The Rapid Bus arrived when they had just opened two lanes on streets that shortly after lost one lane for this service. “There was no mobility plan adapted to the constraints of the territory.” The neighborhood organization consulted experts who said the route should have passed through another street, Ingeniero Emilio Herrera, to generate fewer congestion problems.
From the Sanchinarro Neighborhood Association, they illustrate the dissatisfaction with the results of a survey of the population of the area that they carried out in September: “1,257 people [91,6%] responded that they noticed problems with traffic light timing, while 1,269 [92,4%] detected an increase in traffic jams and 1,272 [92,6%] “They think that a conventional line would have covered the same needs of the neighborhood.”
Results which contrast with those of another survey, in this case municipal, prepared by the EMT in July 2023 (before the final expansion). People consulted They gave an average score of 9.17 points out of 10 to this first Rapid Bus line.. The users interviewed particularly appreciated the exterior aesthetics of the vehicle, its comfortable interior as well as the speed and safety of this mode of transport. Furthermore, 20% of those questioned said they had stopped using their private car to make the same journey on these buses.
Traffic lights with artificial intelligence
Amalia highlights that during the launch of the project, they met with the president of Hortaleza, David Pérez, as well as the general director of Planning and Infrastructure of the City Hall, María Dolores Ortiz. When they explained the problem with traffic lights, the response from the Town Hall was that “they work with artificial intelligence and would learn to self-regulate”. Amalia jokingly adds that “they must be very bad learners…”. He says that, in any case, what they are now looking for is not a new meeting, but a solution: “We don’t want meetings, we want facts.”
This newspaper consulted the Mobility, Environment and Urban Planning sector led by councilor Borja Carabante to find out its assessment of the first year of Bus Rapid with a complete line. However, at the time of publishing this article, they have not responded to the questions raised.
The extension of the first and so far only rapid bus line has led to the change of one of its leading lines, since it previously departed from the vicinity of the Isabel Zendal Nursing Hospital (Antoñete roundabout) . Now it leaves María Mercedes de Borbón Street and continues along Secundino Zuazo Avenue (two stops in each direction), Manuel Fraga Iribarne Avenue (four stops in each direction), Armed Forces Avenue (six stops in each direction), Francisco Pi Avenue and Maragall. (four stops in each direction), Ana de Austria street (one stop in the direction of Hospital + two in the direction of Valdebebas) and Niceto Alcalá Zamora avenue (two stops in the direction of Hospital + one in the direction of Valdebébas). The journey then continues along conventional routes without making other stops until reaching its destination in the vicinity of Ramón y Cajal.
For the acquisition of the 12 vehicles of the fast bus fleet, the investment amounted to 6,420,000 euros without VAT, of which 2,400,000 are financed by NextGenerationEU European funds, channeled through the Recovery and Transformation Plan and Resilience. For its part, the construction of the separate platform benefited from a budget of 12.8 million euros, of which 4 were allocated to the very controversial traffic light system of this line.
