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Almeida's "chaotic and dangerous" Christmas: "The city is a mousetrap"

2022-12-18T19:04:49.562Z


The chaos caused by the accumulation of citizens in the Castellana who attended the videomapping projected on the Palacio de Cibeles and in the access to Árticus, the park...


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The chaos caused by the accumulation of citizens in the Castellana that attended the

videomapping

projected on the Palacio de Cibeles and in the access to Árticus, the Christmas park of the Casa de Campo inaugurated on Saturday, is caused by the "bad planning of the mayor of Madrid", José Luis Martínez-Almeida, as indicated by some union sources consulted by this newspaper.

"The problem is that the Mobility agents do not work overtime as a protest.

We feel abandoned by the City Council."

"Christmas is being chaotic and dangerous. Madrid is a mousetrap," explains Jesús, representative of the Professional Union of Mobility Agents (SPAM).

The first "critical" situation occurred on November 28, when the Christmas lights were switched on.

Thousands of people blocked the traffic accesses to the Plaza de España and Gran Vía. "It is repetitive. There is a shortage of staff during the weekends.

Right now, there are 12 mobility agents per unit when the normal thing would be for each unit to be made up of per 100

".

The Municipal Police is in charge of filling the empty positions.

"And there aren't enough agents either. They're not enough. It's been going on since last year's Christmas campaign. If we also start adding events, like Arctic or the Circus of the Sun,

Madrid becomes a mousetrap

."

From the union they do not understand how the City Council has been carried away by "the lack of control".

This year the coordination center has not been called, as it used to be at the beginning of each Christmas campaign.

"We don't understand the reason,"

says Jesus incredulously.

The coordination center is made up of the National Police, Municipal Police, EMT, Emergencies and Mobility commanders.

"Any incident was foreseen. For example, the problem of the accesses to the Casa de Campo could have been solved.

It took an hour to travel a section of M-30 that under normal conditions is completed in five minutes

".

Families who drove to Arcticus improvised solutions.

"They began to park by Pintor Rosales or Príncipe Pío,

According to the organization, 22,000 people attended Arctic on Saturday.

They closed access to the park "to safeguard the safety of visitors."

Bea went with her family.

"In the Casa de Campo it was impossible to park. It was all full of cars. In Príncipe Pío there was an incredible mounted

.

In fact, there were people asking at the Arcticus gate which way to go to Cirque du Soleil. We parked at the Hippodrome.

Shuttles were enabled.

We arrived at the Casa de Campo at ten to seven and there were people waiting to come back.

'Don't get off,' they told us.

Meanwhile, buses kept coming.

The place was collapsed.

The Police told us that the organization had gotten out of hand.

Then, in a moment, they cleared the area, the buses were able to enter, buses from private companies also arrived and we returned to the Hippodrome at ten o'clock at night without any further problems".

"Almeida does not want to be mayor"

The last weeks of Almeida at the head of the City Council have not been easy.

Puerta del Sol is 90% open to the public, with parts of the pavement still raised.

The rain flooded the accesses to some Metro stops.

"

It does not have a city project

", explain authorized sources of the Popular Party.

"He is a good politician and a good person, but deep down he does not want to be mayor of Madrid."

The agreement that the Mobility agents signed with Carmena expired in 2018. "Everything is long and lazy. We are in the middle of negotiating an agreement with many deficiencies for the group. There are no means or projection for the future. The delegate of the Mobility area [ Borja Carabante] presumes to make purchases for us. If they have bought it, it is not on the street. Some agents have had to buy the boots. We have been without clothing for four years.

The vehicles are in poor condition. The motorcycles have 80,000 kilometers. 18 years in a shift, they don't have the possibility of changing it to reconcile

. The workloads are enormous. Discouragement spreads," explains Jose, from the Municipal Employees Union.

The PSOE spokesperson in the City Council, Mar Espinar, called Almeida to responsibility.

"He must guarantee the security measures for the attendees. He must learn from past events," he said, according to Efe.

Espinar considered the crowds "worrying".

In fact, the two union representatives consulted consider that, deep down, there was luck.

"Anything could have happened. If someone gets scared and a stampede starts or a firecracker goes off, we are talking about a much more serious problem

. The City Council's management is like flipping a coin: this time it came out 'heads'".

The spokeswoman for the Más Madrid municipal group, Rita Maestre, described Saturday afternoon in the city as a "total disaster".

And she pointed to the Arctic organization

.

"They sold twice as many tickets, the signage was lousy and the staff hired were minimal."

"Citizens took the car"

"Several factors came together to cause the collapse," Let's Go, the promoter of Árticus, has justified.

"People

did not arrive at the park at the scheduled time due to mobility problems

. Others also decided to attend the open day on Saturday without having previously registered. It caused an excess of unforeseen public at the park gates."

Let's Go recommended the "use of public transportation."

This Sunday many people have come to the venue.

"A mobility plan was approved for December 17 and 18 on the occasion of the 'videomapping' on Cibeles" with the total closure to traffic between 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. of Cibeles, Recoletos, Paseo del Prado and Calle Alcalá between the Plaza de la Independencia and Gran Vía.

"The retentions are due to the fact that many citizens chose the private vehicle as a travel alternative

, advising against the municipal recommendations", clarify sources from the Department of Mobility.

"Regarding the statements made by union agents, they are subjective points of view of a sector interested in achieving salary improvements. In this sense, they are negotiating with them and a proposal has been made to them that is economically insufficient.

This issue has nothing to do with the traffic incidents that occurred yesterday

, since the mobility device is made up of Mobility Agents and Municipal Police".

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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Source: elmuldo

All news articles on 2022-12-18

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