The long and winding road for bus passengers in two Malaga villages

The mayors of El Borge and Almáchar in Malaga province’s Axarquía area have written a formal complaint to the Junta de Andalucía to denounce a new bus route which links the two mountain villages to the town of Vélez-Málaga. They say that the route is much longer than it was before the change and that they want to be included in Malaga’s Metropolitan area transport consortium.

According to mayors Antonio Yuste in Almáchar and Raúl Vallejo in El Borge, the Andalusian regional government “has completely eliminated the routes along the El Borge-Benamocarra-Vélez-Málaga road, forcing passengers to travel along the Cútar-Benamargosa-Triana-Vélez-Málaga road,” which they argue is “a longer route”.

In a statement Yuste and Vallejo said that the two town halls “have denounced a new setback by the Junta de Andalucía to public transport in the new public transport schedule that comes into force on 2 September”.

In view of the situation, both councils “have presented a formal complaint in writing to the Junta de Andalucía” showing their “discontent with this decision, a new unfair decision of the Andalusian government with regard to mobility in our towns.”

“Instead of improving public transport, as the residents of our villages have been demanding for years, the Junta is once again adopting a measure that harms Almáchar and El Borge, a measure that isolates us even more,’ said the mayor of Almáchar.

The mayor of El Borge has said that “far from meeting our demand to integrate our municipalities in the Metropolitan Transport Consortium of the Malaga Area, the Junta de Andalucía excludes us a little more, worsening the service provided to our residents.”

He added that the decision affects the combined population of around 2,800 people across the two villages and “once again shows that for the Andalusian government the residents of Almáchar and El Borge are second-class citizens.”