No to Arrecife “Scalextric Track”

The southern approach to Arrecife has been a textbook piece of poor planning for decades, splitting Playa Honda and El Cable in two and requiring all traffic for Arrecife’s outer ringroad to move into the fast lane.

The solution proposed by the Canarian Government has been to build an entirely new road behind the Playa Honda industrial zone, and replicate the raised roundabout that exists between Arrecife and Costa Teguise near El Cable for the approach to the capital.

However, according to Proyecto Lanzarote 2021 (PLZ21), this project will create another “Scalextric track” that “only attends to the demands of vehicular traffic” and “increases the rupture between residential areas.”

PLZ21 propose a two-level solution in which the lower level is sunken into a tunnel and reserved for more intense traffic, while an upper level offers room for cyclists, pedestrians, and residential traffic.

Eduardo Spinola Rosa, one of the architects behind PLZ21, says that “we believe that the entry to Arrecife should be a much more human space where there is a clear permeability between the suburban residential zones and the island in general.”

PLZ21’s project involves the creation of a tunnel for the main flow of traffic entering Arrecife, which would remove busy roads from view and create space above ground. The burial of roads is the solution preferred by environmental groups, and there was anger last year when the idea was rejected for Playa Honda while similar burial projects were approved on Gran Canaria and Tenerife.

No response has been given to the proposals by the Canarian Government. However, the Coalición Canaria opposed the current project when they were in opposition, and it will be interesting to see if their enthusiasm for burying roads remains as strong now that they’re in charge of the budget.

Several other fascinating proposals for improvements on Lanzarote can be seen at the group’s website – plz21.com. They include the burial of stretches of the LZ-2 road at Playa Honda and Mácher, and the creation of a cycle-path/footpath from Maciot to Femés.