Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan, Mijas las Lagunas, Malaga
The growth and modernization of cities comes along with an increased mobility and with it the existence of significant tensions between accessibility and improvements in urban and environmental
quality of the city
Mijas las Lagunas is a coastal ciity, relatively far from the old town of the municipality of Mijas. It developed rather independently in the Costa del Sol with the growth of tourism and housing. As
a result of this development it is in terms of population the most important part of Mijas.
The Mediterranean highway which passes right through the core of the village presents the main access to both Mijas and Fuengirola, the neighboring municipality which actually forms a functional unit
with las Lagunas.
The main actions proposed are:
Reorganizing of the urban road network
with a ringroad that has the ability to redirect the traffic
with a final destination outside the village. It is also used
to soften the jump of scale in the road hierarchy when leaving the highway and entering directly into a narrow downtown street network, generating significant traffic problems.
The streets within this ring are converted to residential
areas with pedestrian priority and closed to public
traffic.
To improve the urban quality it is essential to cut the high
percentage of short trips by private cars and encourage
non-motorized modes of transport.
The mobility plan proposes a network of pedestrian
routes with a minimum
width and equipment, together
with a pedestrian zone that marks a new functional
area so far lacking in the centre. The houses in many
areas have no parking so that most residents are
forced to leave their cars in the street. We propose to
regularize this type of parking by green areas and the
rapid completion of an existing residents parking scheme.
Urban Public
Transport is currently provided by the Consortium of Malaga. However the west and the outer areas are practically without service. We propose the creation of two urban lines. One has a
short, centric route entering the pedestrian zone and providing access to the new center. The other one provides a basic service to the widespread outskirts of the village which hast a significant
percentage of the population who do not have any public transportation services at the moment. We also propose the extension of the service of the consortium to the west of the nucleus.
Regarding the cycling mobility we propose the creation of a common network of secure separated cycling-tracks between Mijas and Fuengirola. Both together form an area whose distances and weather conditions are nearly perfect for the everyday use of the bicycle as an alternative mode of urban transport. Functionally we consider it the most convenient and the fastest transport mode available in this area.
Elaborated for the department of Transport of Prointec SA.