The Avenida de Salobreña, otherwise known as the road from the Alcampo supermarket into the centre of Motril, has now been out of action (closed) since May 2009 with a projected completion date of late March 2010. With great fanfare we were told in November 2009 that the road would be ready and opened again by 5 January 2010 and the Three Kings festivities, as most Motrileños are now totally fed up with the noise, dust and length of time taken on this project.
Ummm, excuse me, but it is now nearly the end of January and the road has still not opened! The socialists have had great fun with this and are having a ball in the local press asking why it was ever mentioned in the first place that the road would be ready by early January when it clearly wasn’t able to be achieved although I think it might have something to do with the amount of rain we have had since mid December.
Taking a walk down the Avenida is quite an eye opener to what we are going to get when it has opened. Firstly, not a parking space in sight! Now, that is a clever move on the one hand and a disaster on the other! The clever bit is that it forces all those who want to park into the nearby new underground car park which used to be where the outdoor market was situated before it moved up to the Mercadona supermarket to the east of town… no more free parking.
The bad news is that the Spanish do like to park right outside the shop they want to visit and the Avenida will now become a one track road in each direction … if anyone stops, there is no chance of a car being able to pass the stationary vehicle. This should be especially fun when the shops have deliveries being made as delivery vehicles will either hold up the traffic or will be forced into the side streets which will equally block the flow of traffic around the area.
Interestingly, there is a bicycle lane from the direction of Alcampo to the centre of town but not one in the opposite direction … why a bicycle lane in only one direction? (And anyway, the children ride their bikes on the pavements here.)
Then there are the new roundabouts … ho, ho, are we going to have fun at these points in the road! The road is narrow and the roundabouts so large (one resembles a large fruit bowl) that it looks unlikely that a bus or lorry will be able to get round the roundabout without either mounting the pavement or crashing into the roundabout! This really is a road that has been designed for the pedestrian with it’s wide pavements but unfortunately, ripping out the trees that used to be there and putting in palms, has taken away much of the shade and it is going to be a hot slog walking down the Avenida in the warmer months.
Until the road has been opened the jury is out but I reckon that there is going to be quite a lot said and written about the newly designed Avenida de Salobreña over the future months.