“I do not agree that the solution is to ban, like the left.” With these statements, the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, rejected in 2023 the limitation of the rental of electric scooters in the city. The socialist councilor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, had just called a referendum to veto these vehicles in the Parisian capital, which ended up supporting the proposal. A little over a year later, Almeida corrected his words and announced the same measure, without there being a popular vote.
This is one of the most crystalline examples of the rectifications that the City Council has had to apply despite a speech by the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, based on the idea of individual freedom above any economic, social or environmental regulation. But the measures, whether motivated by neighborhood oppositions, economic discontent in certain sectors or by judicial decisions, go much further and cross different areas of municipal management.
The first change took place in 2021, with Ciudadanos still within the company. The Popular Party based much of the 2019 electoral campaign on criticism of the Madrid Central project promoted during Manuela Carmena’s term, advocating freedom of movement for any vehicle within the M-30. The PP even appealed this decision in court, and the Supreme Court ended up overturning it in 2021. However, the local executive had already announced before that it was renouncing its electoral promise to dismantle this system of controls and fines.
Almeida maintained the sanctions and drafted new legislation to continue regulating low-emission zones, both inside the central almond tree and in the Plaza Elíptica (the point with the worst traffic pollution data in Madrid). It remains to be seen how this path will continue thanks to the ruling of the High Court of Justice of Madrid, after the appeal of Vox, which annuls said low-emission zones. The City Council has already announced that it is preparing a new ordinance, while buying time by appealing the court ruling and preventing its automatic application.
The mayor’s policies have undergone a real pedestrian shift, with the elimination of more than 10,000 on-street parking spaces to expand the sidewalks by almost 90,000 square meters. The elimination of spaces for vehicles in neighborhoods like Chamberí was one of the main criticisms leveled at Carmena during the 2019 municipal elections. A year before arriving in Cibeles, she lamented that the pedestrianization works of the Plaza de Olavide would “harm citizens”, by eliminating parking spaces without alternatives. Already with the baton in hand, he opted for maintaining the pedestrianization, which eliminated 34 additional parking spaces.
Tourist rentals: from “doing nothing” to suspending new licenses
Three years and a change of heart later, one of Almeida’s most viral tweets is still published on his account. Just six letters, “exactly”, with which he summarized his policy to face the housing crisis in Madrid: non-intervention. However, the unstoppable increase in tourist and temporary accommodation, as well as its impact on real estate prices, has led the municipal government to address it.
Thus, in April, the councilor announced a set of measures to address the problem. Although they are still insufficient according to entities such as the Madrid Tenants’ Union and They do not foresee a total suspension of licenses like the one that will be implemented in BarcelonaThe paradigm shift is significant. Almeida has paralyzed new permits for tourist apartments, fined illegals almost 30,000 euros and reinforced the staff of inspectors (dedicating part of them to irregular accommodation for the first time). All this while his team prepares the Modification of the General Plan that affects this type of housing.
In addition, the Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility sector led by Councilor Borja Carabante (Almeida’s right-hand man) will expand the areas with tourist apartment limits to achieve “a substantial reduction”. In parallel, the government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso has also nuanced a libertarian position that it maintains in the electoral campaigns, at least on this issue: it will prohibit tourist rentals in sheltered housing and will toughen sanctions.
Scooters and skates
Perhaps the most drastic and rapid change of criteria of the Almeida administration, always through the enormous and powerful delegated domain that Carabante directs. At the beginning of the month, the city council announced that it would renew the 6,000 licenses granted so far so that the three companies that currently operate (Dott, Lime and Tier Mobility) stop doing so from October, arguing that with the expansion of Bicimad to all The city’s mobility needs are covered.
The mayor justified in statements to the media that these vehicles have been misused by some users, that they remain poorly parked in the city and constitute a danger, “especially for the elderly”. The abundance of scooters on the sidewalks and people traveling on pedestrian routes has been one of the most frequent problems caused by the emergence of this means of transport in Madrid.
The City Council assured when presenting the new licenses in January 2023 that with the renewed authorizations, operators had the technology to force customers to park only in specific areas of the Central district. In the rest of the city, they could park outside as long as there was no space for motorcycles, mopeds, bicycles and VMPs within 50 meters of the parking lot. It was while announcing these updates that the mayor issued the statements that open this article. “We are moving towards a more integrated, more orderly and safer model,” Carabante boasted the same day.
But the reality is that these technologies have not prevented images of scooters parked on sidewalks less than a meter wide, making it difficult for pedestrians to pass. According to data from the Madrid City Council, scooter rental companies have accumulated up to 94,927 fines in 2022. “The technological issue has not been enough, the conditions are not right for there to be concessionary companies in Madrid,” acknowledged Almeida a few weeks ago, who, despite his defense of scooters before this drastic measure, has never allowed himself to be photographed riding one in any presentation or municipal campaign.
Silencing the Bernabéu
The mayor’s latest retreat is more of a modulation of the discourse, since the concerts at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium have been postponed for six months by Real Madrid itself. At least on paper, since neither party has hidden that the measure is the result of constant negotiations between the club chaired by Florentino Pérez, the City Council and the Regional Executive (both Ayuso and Almeida have thanked Real Madrid for their “responsible” action). In fact, before the drastic suspension, the mayor had already announced interventions such as setting the end of events before 11:00 p.m. or limiting them to a maximum of 30 per year.
During the controversy generated by the first concerts, where it was proven that the noise emissions far exceeded the decibels allowed by municipal regulations, Almeida downplayed the protests and complaints of “some neighbors”. Instead, he stressed the importance of this activity to make Madrid a world reference for this type of macro-events and leisure in general. “The concerts at the Bernabéu are covered by the license,” he also insisted, although in reality the stadium uses an exceptional license for each concert, since the use of the hall is always sporting. With more than 20 musical performances in 2024, this exception is no longer such.
This is one of the main arguments of the criminal complaint with which the Association of the Wounded of the Bernabéu obtained that José Ángel Sánchez “JAS”, administrator of the Santiago Bernabéu, be called to testify by the Contentious-Administrative Court number 53 of the Plaza de Castilla. The complaint also requested that Almeida and Carabante be accused of crime against the environment, but for the moment the judge understands that the fines for exceeding the noise limits that the City Council has imposed on concert organizers prevent us from talking about institutional inaction.
After all, changing one’s mind, even at the cost of renouncing an ideal of absolute freedom, can be a managerial, political, media and even judicial strategy.
