Adeje abolishes local urban bus service

[Janet]

Residents of Tijoco Bajo, Las Rosas, Armeñime, Los Olivos, Adeje town, Fañabé, Los Menores and Miraverde have expressed their anger at Adeje Ayuntamiento "for withdrawing the urban bus service throughout the municipality". The Residents Association of Tijoco Bajo (Avtiba) said that they only found out today that the service was cancelled a week ago when they asked for confirmation from the Ayuntamiento after complaints from residents, leaving the Association feeling they were being made a mockery of. Several people, they said, had even missed appointments with the doctor through waiting at bus stops for buses that were never going to arrive.

The association dismissed Adeje Ayuntamiento's claim that a letter had been sent out, and argued that neither of the area's councillors had passed on any information about the cancellation of the service. They called for the service to be reestablished since without it the mobility of the area's residents was greatly disadvantaged. Adeje, however, said that the service was actually eliminated in February after the Titsa contract expired, but that the Ayuntamiento had decided to continue providing it "provisionally" in order to carry out a study to determine its viability. Over the last six months, the council continued, where over 90% of the cost had been subsidized, it was concluded that each route had an average of only two passengers and thus that the service was under-used and loss-making. The Ayuntamiento added that such a local transport service was not part of basic municipal responsibility. JA