Benidorm carries out actions to improve traffic flow and pedestrian safety at Easter

Benidorm City Council is executing some measures aimed at improving the flow of traffic and pedestrians' safety at Easter. A series of actions will be finished just before these holiday days in which a massive arrival of visitors is expected who will not be able to access Beniardá Avenue as it is cut off to traffic due to underground works.

To carry out these works, the technicians of the Mobility Department have previously carried out simulations of different scenarios to implement the best solutions. In these simulations, situations with a greater or lesser volume of traffic have been recreated and this has been the cause of the fact that days ago, at specific moments, some retentions occurred.

The reason, as explained by the Councilor for Mobility, José Ramón González de Zárate, is that "the traffic light frequency was changing to check the level of fluidity and make the best decisions." These simulations concluded that the best scenario to increase fluidity was the creation of a direct access lane to Europa Avenue from Alfonso Puchades street "because the traffic light variations that can be made are not enough." This work is already being carried out "and since it is urgency, it will be finished before the arrival of the tourists."

This new lane will allow the roundabout to gain capacity. "Now there will be two direct lanes from Alfonso Puchades to the elliptical roundabout and one more with exclusive access to Europa Avenue" González de Zárate specified. “The best solution was this new direct lane. After having studied and analyzed the traffic in different scenarios, this conclusion was reached, which is the best solution” he added.

On the other hand, so-called "pedestrian shelters" have also been set up on some roads with two lanes for each direction of movement. They are a kind of islands on the road, next to the sidewalk and perfectly marked out and signposted, whose objective is to reduce the distance from pedestrian crossings "so that the time in which the pedestrian traffic light is green is also reduced, and increase the number of vehicles, preserving pedestrian safety and improving the flow of traffic by being open for more time the traffic light for vehicles”.

These 'pedestrian shelters' have been set up on several roads, with special emphasis on Alfonso Puchades and Europa Avenue "because they are main roads with a lot of traffic".

Another of the actions that are being carried out is located on Comunidad Valenciana Avenue in front of the BP gas station. A double access hill to the elliptical roundabout is being enabled there. “Specifically, what is being done is to extend this double lane from the roundabout itself to the access to Séquia Mare park; the length of it is increased to absorb more traffic” the mayor has detailed, who qualified that the current road markings have already been milled.

In addition to these actions, others that have already been completed are also particularly relevant on these dates. This is the case of the double lane access to Alfonso Puchades from Calle Bélgica, which allows a greater flow of vehicles and makes it possible to turn both to the left towards the roundabout and to the right to continue along Alfonso Puchades towards Jaime I.

On the other hand, other roads such as Camino del Llandero will continue to maintain the single direction of circulation, like Italia street or Bélgica street, as a consequence of the cut-off on Beniardá Avenue and to maintain road safety.