Last week, the intermodal station in A Coruña opened its doors, but it did so without train services or parking facilities. Mayor Ángel García Seoane commented ironically that "it's like inaugurating a restaurant without a kitchen".
The Xunta de Galicia took advantage of this opening to modify the routes of metropolitan buses, forcing them to pass through the intermodal station. This decision increases travel times for users from the metropolitan area municipalities who need to enter and leave the city, when the main demand is for agile and direct public transport.
Furthermore, the Concello da Coruña announced its intention to tender a new urban transport contract for a long period, initially excluding the possibility of moving towards a metropolitan system integrating Oleiros, Cambre, Culleredo, and Arteixo. The creation of a Metropolitan Transport Consortium would allow for joint service planning and tailored solutions for the daily reality of thousands of people.
Added to this lack of planning are future restrictions on private vehicle circulation, which could particularly penalize those with fewer economic resources. The ecological transition should not be discriminatory or shift the cost of environmental policies onto working families.
The A Coruña region needs a mobility policy designed for people, with coordination mechanisms between the Xunta, the Central Government, and the city councils to unblock and execute pending infrastructure projects and improve connections with an efficient, fast, and accessible metropolitan public transport system.
