The neighborhood association of La Bordeta will ask the Lleida city council to reinforce the urban bus service in the neighborhood with more frequencies and route changes on lines L6 and L7. Juanjo Gatius, president of the entity, will present these proposals tomorrow to the deputy mayor of Mobility, Cristina Morón.
The claim comes as the municipal government prepares the new concession for the service and rules out taking over its direct management. Residents argue that the neighborhood, with 16,000 residents and located far from the center, needs a more effective connection precisely during the time slots when buses are full.
La Bordeta asks for more buses during peak saturation hours
The neighborhood entity demands that lines L6 and L7 increase their frequency between eight and nine in the morning and between four and five in the afternoon. These are the two time slots they identify as having the highest demand.
Gatius maintains that both lines are among the most used in the entire network and that on many routes the vehicles are full. The petition he will present to Cristina Morón proposes immediate and concrete measures to serve the neighborhood's users.
"These are the hours when these lines have the most demand and are also among the most used in the entire network, and often the vehicles are full, so their number should be increased" - Juanjo Gatius, president of the La Bordeta neighborhood association
In addition to the schedule reinforcement, the association wants to modify part of the L7 itinerary. Their proposal involves splitting it after Pont Vell so that a sub-line runs through Rambla Ferran, the train and bus stations, and returns via Prat de la Riba, Balmes, and Rambla d'Aragó towards La Bordeta.
The proposal for L7 includes the funeral home and avoids the Antoni Solé turn
The objective of this change, according to Gatius, is to offer a more direct route to the neighborhood and distribute travelers between two routes. It also proposes that buses do not turn on Antoni Solé street and continue straight towards the football field to circulate along Pla d'Urgell avenue.
The association understands that this variant would avoid a complicated maneuver and facilitate the route towards Els Mangraners. To this battery of requests, it adds another demand for Saturdays, when the L7 only reaches the funeral home until 1:30 PM.
The neighbors want the L7 line to reach the funeral home on all its Saturday frequencies. Gatius defends that La Bordeta needs better public transport because it concentrates 16,000 residents and maintains a daily relationship with the city center.
While the neighborhood prepares for that meeting, the city council is working on the new phase of the service. The municipal government plans to approve the tender documents for the new concession before the end of the year and has ruled out municipalization after concluding that the most technically convenient option is to maintain the concession model.
The future urban bus contract will have a duration of ten years and an annual cost of 11.6 million euros, while the current concession expires at the end of the year and the city council plans to extend it until the new service is awarded.