The Formentera Council's mobility office reports that from tomorrow, Friday February 9, road work at the crossing of avinguda Isidor Macabich and avinguda Vuit d'Agost, part of a bid to equip the ses Bardetes neighbourhood with fibre optic internet connections, means drivers travelling on the first of the two avenues will face intermittent restrictions once schools let out for the weekend.

Rafael González, chief of the department, warned the upgrades would translate into extra noise for residents of the area. “We sincerely apologise, but this work is key to getting ses Bardetes high-speed connections before year end”.

Traffic control measures
The work will affect the flow of traffic on avinguda ("avenue") Isidor Macabich, which will be reduced to just one lane. To minimize headaches for motorists, special signage will be used to ensure continued vehicle flow in both directions.

In the event weather conditions prevent crews from performing the work this weekend, the project will be pushed back another week.

The Formentera Council's Office of Mobility wishes to report it will soon host exams for taxi permits issued by the municipality. The guidelines for the examination process, adopted by the administration and published February 1, 2018 in issue 15 of the regional gazette (BOIB), can also be found in the mobility department's section on the Council website (www.consellinsulardeformentera.cat) or at https://goo.gl/Mmx453.

Examinations will take place Wednesday. February 28, 2018. Applications will be accepted by the Council's Registre General, located at the Citizen Information Office, or OAC, at carrer de Ramon Llull, 6, in Sant Francesc.

The names of successful and unsuccessful candidates will be published on the administration's bulletin board on February 16.

The Formentera Council's Office of Mobility reports that last year from August 3 to 15, the period of the year the island's network of roads experiences its heaviest use, crews gathered figures on how pedestrians, motorists and taxi drivers as well as bicycle, scooter and bus riders use roads to get a clearer picture of mobility on the island.

In an attempt to identify trends, surveyors crunched data against those produced by a similar tally from 2009. They found that nearly across the board, roads are used significantly more than before.

In terms of average daily use, or IMD for an abbreviated term used in Catalan, the only portion of the network where travellers took to the roads less frequently was between es Pujols and ses Illetes. Surveyors noted a 4% drop on that road. Elsewhere, however, upticks ranged from 2 to 26%. The most modest shifts in use (5, 2, -4 and 7%) occurred between la Savina, es Pujols and Sant Ferran, while the highway to Cala Saona saw the steepest hike in congestion, or 26%.

Highway PM-820, which cuts a line across the island from la Savina to la Mola, experienced significant surges (up to 23%) during peak periods of the day, even surpassing theoretical capacity limits set for the stretch from la Savina to es Caló de Sant Agustí. Increases of 14 and 19% were logged on the road between Sant Francesc and the crossing at es Cap de Barbaria's hallmark restaurant. A 10% upturn took place near the Maryland resort between es Caló and la Mola.

From 2016 to 2017, Formentera's population rose by 8% and vehicles (a third of them scooters) multiplied too, increasing 3.5%. Roughly eight thousand scooters and two thousand cars on the island's rental car fleets must be taken into account as well. On average there are 675 vehicles for every thousand residents, nearly 200 more than the national average, or 479:1000.

The Formentera Council Office of Mobility reports that from this summer, local motorists can expect to find metred parking in es Pujols, Sant Ferran and Sant Francesc. As published today in the country's official gazette, the Boletino Oficial del Estado, the Council has begun taking steps to purchase parking metres with an eye to installing them in the first half of 2018. The system is expected to be in use and fully operational in the three towns by July 1 of this year.

Trial run in la Savina
When the Council launched metred parking in la Savina back in 2015, it was the first of its kind on the island. Previously at the whim of chronic parking shortages, the town has largely seen the problem reversed. The experiment's success propelled the decision to replicate the scheme in other towns on the island that are similarly squeezed by parking crunch.

The task of patrolling the new metred spots in winter will fall to a three-person brigade of parking attendants and in summer their ranks will swell to 16. As laid out in the Council's 2018 budget, members of the brigade will be employed by the municipality and contracted by the Council.

Meetings will be held with neighbourhood associations in each town to explain the particulars of the project in each case.

Consell d'Entitats
Today the metred parking scheme, known as pàrquing regulat in Catalan, reflects the same model that was presented before the island's citizen participation entity (Consell d'Entitats) in 2014 and 2015. Many of the group's gatherings over the years have focused on the goal of cutting the number of vehicles in circulation on the island, particularly in summer.

Discussions at Consell d'Entitats meetings succeeded in generating a range of new proposals. Though some, like collecting information on vehicles that enter the island, fall under the authority of the Govern balear, others, such as regulating parking in urban areas, are within the Council's purview. In that regard, the planned expansion of the scheme is as much about optimising how people park as it is encouraging them to drive less.