Marbella promotes transport alternatives to private cars with 24m euro proposal

The project launched by Marbella town hall to transform an 8,580-square-metre plot of land next to the Albergue África hostel into a large sports and leisure area and to build an underground car park with capacity for some 580 vehicles underneath it, should also serve to improve traffic in the Miraflores district.

The initiative, which has been put out to tender for 24.39 million euros, includes the draft project and the bidders will have to define not only the details of the car park and the sports facilities and open areas, but also "analyse and implement real alternatives to the use of private cars, favouring" the use of public transport, according to the town hall.

It assumes that the project "will directly and significantly alter the current traffic patterns of the Miraflores district", especially "on the days when sporting events coincide the most" and that it will add to the impact of the car park, which is why it has set as one of "the objectives" of the contract "the need for a transformation" of traffic.

Although the town hall has already established that this space should include a bus loading and unloading zone, it does not propose a specific solution in this regard, which is left to the bidders, as well as the rest of the details, with the drafting of the project, but it does point to a solution: transport hubs, an initiative successfully implemented in European cities that can include car-sharing services, on-demand transport, buses or bicycles.

The town hall highlights that the European Commission is considering requiring more than 400 "urban nodes" to have multimodal passenger hubs in order to improve the so-called first and last mile connections and long-distance connectivity.

For the town hall, "the effects" that the Africa Hostel project will have on transport are "a relevant technical condition" that require the solution to be integrated into the design of the project itself, so that bidders must "analyse and implement" these "real alternatives" to the private car.

The bidders' proposal must cover "the immediate surroundings" of the area of action, including the study and design of traffic and transport in the Miraflores district and "implementing the facilities deemed necessary". Thus, according to the town hall, the projects presented by the companies that aspire to define and build this new space must do so by putting on the table "a proposal for general and complete action on a central area of Marbella" that already currently has a "large number of services and facilities".

To which will now be added a car park with some 580 spaces, most of them with a "high turnover" and which will involve "repeated access and exits throughout the day" and facilities that will involve "a significant flow of athletes, sports schools, families, spectators, etc.."who will need a vehicle to get to and from the facilities.

For all these reasons, the town hall recognises that the project is "complex from a technical point of view", but considers that it is inevitable to tackle a project that "will significantly modify transport in the Miraflores district".