The Valencia City Council announced this Wednesday the changes it will undertake on seven EMT lines. These are lines 4, 11, 16, 26, 31, 32 and 70 that will once again link the neighborhoods with the Town Hall Square or its immediate surroundings. Lines 4, 11, 31, 32 and 70 join C1 and will run through La Paz and San Vicente streets to the Plaza del Ayuntamiento. And both 16 and 26 will arrive along Calle de la Paz to Poeta Querol. Lines 8, 10, 28, 40, 71 and 81 will continue to circulate along Colón Street, “which more than meet the communication needs in this part of the city,” the EMT explained.
A new direct service is also created between the Joaquín Sorolla Station and the Valencian coast, with the aim of benefiting Valencian tourism and the needs for fluid connections with the beaches. To do this, line 31, after circulating through the Town Hall Square, will continue to said station, from where it will restart the return to the seafront. Currently line 31 runs between Poeta Querol and Malva-rosa streets.
“With this reorganization of the lines that return to the city center, the new municipal government of María José Catalá satisfies the unanimous demands for direct communications with the center from the city’s neighborhoods, mainly those in the north and east,” he said. stated the Councilor for Security and Mobility, Jesús Carbonell.
For her part, the first mayor, María José Catalá, said that “the reorganization of the EMT lines through the center of the city, apart from covering the communication needs with the heart of Valencia, widely observed in the last three years, its fundamental objectives are the direct connection with the Town Hall Square, the expansion of the service towards the Central Market and the recovery of old direct relations with the entire historic center.
In addition to expanding the area of ??influence of the EMT, Catalá has explained that transfers and travel times are reduced, and the routes that differ and complement those offered by Metrovalencia are rebalanced.
“After the remodeling carried out in 2020 by the previous government, there was a need to reach the center; Many people had been left unassisted, and important communications had been broken. This was confirmed in the center where criticism from merchants and neighbors had multiplied,” explained Mayor María José Catalá today. “We are correcting serious errors,” she assured.
For his part, the manager of the EMT, Manuel Martínez, explained that the recent studies carried out by the Municipal Transport Company “abound in this direction. Since the remodeling undertaken in May 2020, and the elimination of lines through the center, there had been poor quality of communications with the heart of the city.”
“The studies affirm that the lines had lost attractiveness and users in the rest of Valencia. The lines that stopped bringing citizens to the center have not grown in line with the rest of the network, in fact, they have stagnated, with a growth of 1.3% compared to 8.91% for the rest of the lines in the network. “They are compared to pre-pandemic demand.”
The mayor has explained that all these changes will be made when the works that the municipal service of the Integrated Water Cycle is currently carrying out on San Vicente Street are completed, which is scheduled for next December. EMT Valencia is already preparing an extensive device to announce in advance all the planned rearrangements, with information at the stops, personnel on the street and on board the buses, and abundant mailing in the neighborhoods from which the lines that once again reach the center. The information will also be widely disseminated on social networks and on the company’s website.
