Cartagena City Council has put out to tender the park-and-ride car park next to the esplanade of the La Rambla shopping centre, as part of the Cartagena Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan, CartaGo.
The municipally-owned plot has a surface area of 19,581.65 square metres and is prepared for 700 parking spaces. The cost is 1.3 million euros and the works have a completion period of six months. The municipal forecast is that the parking spaces in the western area will be in service in the second half of 2024. There will be shaded areas under pergolas, some of which will be photovoltaic, and charging points for electric vehicles. The new parking area will be secured by access control with cameras and will have twenty smart bike racks in addition to the conventional ones.
«The aim is to promote intermodality. That visitors or workers coming from outside the city centre leave their private vehicles in them and use bicycles, skateboards, urban transport or simply travel on foot», explained the mayoress, Noelia Arroyo. This car park will also be useful for the entrance and exit of children from the San Vicente de Paúl School and for users and the public of the Cartagena Sports Centre.
The cost is 1.3 million euros and the works will take six months to complete.
For all these reasons, the City Council is working in parallel on «improving the interconnection by bicycle lane of the two park-and-ride car parks next to La Rambla and Mandarache with the large work centres and shopping areas». Arroyo added that «we will carry out special work on pedestrian safety in the areas surrounding these car parks and on their pedestrian routes. The frequency of urban transport will also be adapted to the needs of car park users».
The other 120 free parking spaces that the City Council plans to put into service next year will be next to the Mandarache, in the Plaza Severo Ochoa. Both projects are valued at just over 1.6 million euros from the nearly 9 million euros of European funds obtained by the Consistory in terms of mobility. «They are helping us to extend the network of cycle lanes in the city, as well as starting to develop the Low Emission Zone ordinance, and providing more and better means of public transport,» said the mayoress.