The delegate of the Government, Adriana Lastra, has presented together with the director of the Area of Promotion of the Delegation, Juan José Fernández, and the general director of the Consortium of Transport of Asturias, Gonzalo Canga, the mobility plan designed for the fifteen weeks in which the Ribadesella bridge will be cut off from traffic due to the works of repair and expansion of the infrastructure that have a budget of more than seven million euros.
Lastra has detailed that “there is no technical alternative to the total closure of road traffic for 15 weeks”, a decision that obeys to “technical and non-political” criteria: “It is an urgent and technically essential action. This has been determined by the reports of the Ministry of Transport, which were explained in detail to the municipal corporation of Ribadesella and which conclude that the structural conditions of the bridge make it impossible to continue delaying its intervention.”
The delegate of the Government has clarified that the bridge will remain open for pedestrian traffic while the works last and has explained that “with the will to explore all possible routes,” she called the Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, to request the collaboration of the Army. The Ground Army’s Engineering Command went to Ribadesella to inspect the land and prepared a technical study with three possible interim options. “Two were discarded due to technical infeasibility,” said Lastra, “and the third involving a large civil work with filling the estuary and the installation of the only Mabey bridge available after the Valencia DANA was finally discarded by the Army itself, that is the truth, and the reports are there.”
In parallel, to mitigate the impact of the cut, the Government Delegation has worked with the Government of the Principality on a special mobility plan that includes continuous shuttle buses between the two shores, reinforced emergency services and a specific resolution of the DGT that allows the passage of agricultural vehicles on the highway for the duration of the total cut of the bridge for traffic. “In this we are, in solving problems, not in creating them,” said Lastra, “in adding, not in dividing.” And in that sense he has asked “those who are more engaged in the personal attack to return to the field of the public, of institutional respect and rigor, because this goes from Ribadesella and its future”.
The government delegate has listed all the steps she has taken since the work was awarded. On December 17, he met privately with the mayor of Ribadesella to report on the calendar of the works, an appointment in which he “did not put a single but”. A month later the municipal groups of Ribadesella were called to explain that thanks to a modification in the project it was possible to include a bike path and expand the area of the promenade. A few days later, on January 20, meetings began with the Principality to prepare the mobility plan and on the same day the Mobility Councillor and the Government delegate reported on its content. A day later there was another meeting on the plan to which the Ministry of Health joined
The next meeting between the government delegate and the mayor of Ribadesella took place when the army was in Ribadesella to study the possibility of enabling a temporary passage for vehicles. It was on February 4th and the mayor had all the information. And since then, while waiting for the decision of the technicians of the Ministry of Defense has not stopped working on the mobility plan. Content of the plan that was officially reported to the mayor yesterday.
Adriana Lastra has denounced that for months she has suffered “a sustained campaign of defamation and personal attacks in relation to this project”: “I do not usually enter into this type of dynamics, but there is a point where one has to say enough. I am a public representative, but I am also a citizen with rights. And like anyone else, I will exercise them and defend myself through the appropriate channels.”
And he regretted that the Mayor’s Office of Ribadesella is “making false statements that, far from contributing to public debate, seem to fuel those attacks.”
Mobility Plan
During the phase of the works consisting of the replacement of the bridge panel by means of a track launch cart, it is necessary to cut the bridge to the road traffic of vehicles, allowing the transit of pedestrians. This phase of the works has an estimated duration of 15 weeks and will be executed outside the summer and Christmas period.
During this time, a series of special measures will be adopted to promote mobility:
- School transport routes are maintained with the necessary adaptations on the routes.
- The Asturias Transport Consortium will enable shuttle buses to facilitate mobility between the two margins of the estuary, linking the Beach area with the Villa through a route with seven stops and 60 expeditions a day from Monday to Friday and 54 on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
- The operating hours of the buses run from 6:15 in the morning until 21:45 at night, at the exits of El Picu. And between 7:15 and 22:15 at the exit from the roundabout on the right bank next to the bridge.
- The duration of the complete journey is 25 minutes for a distance of approximately 17 km.
- One of the stops is in Bones, which will act as a secure link with the regular bus line Ribadesella-Gijón, making the schedules coincide.
- The General Directorate of Traffic will issue a resolution to authorize special vehicles, including agricultural vehicles, to travel through the A-8 Motorway in the section that is enabled and in the days and times that are determined.
Special measures will also be taken to ensure health care. The SESPA will have a permanent medicalized ambulance in the beach area for the initial care of serious emergencies and the transfer of patients.
Minor emergencies will be treated in the health center, with patient movements or, if necessary, the health personnel moving from the health center in the same way as is usually done.
The SESPA has made this proposal based on the available data on emergency care in the beach area in the months outside the summer. In any case, the remaining resources available in the health area are available that, if necessary, can be used.
These are the measures that, with the collaboration of the Government of the Principality of Asturias, have been considered appropriate. Un documento abierto a recibir propuestas de mejora que serán tenidas en cuenta