Renfe has defended that the device applied in other years during the big days of the Fallas celebration, which allows the arrival of Cercanías lines C-1 and C-2 to the València Nord station, is “viable” and “totally acceptable” this year, but only “when the competent administrations guarantee safety,” the company said this Thursday in a statement.
The Valencia City Council requested at the Fallas safety meeting held last February that the Renfe Cercanías lines be diverted to stations other than València Nord, located next to where thousands of people gather every day to witness the male fallera, between 1 and 3 p.m. on big holiday days to avoid episodes like last year in which dozens of people were treated due to heavy crowds.
Lines C3 and C6 were diverted to stations well connected to other means of transport, but for lines C1 and C2, security measures were chosen to have them descend in Albal, a municipality located 15 kilometers from the capital, which provoked the protest of several mayors and travelers from the metropolitan area of Valencia.
The first question, specified by the mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, shortly before the mascletan, in which he was accompanied on the balcony by the president of the Generalitat, Juanfran Pérez Llorca, and the general secretary of the PP, Miguel Tellado, is that the aforementioned “Renfe request is accompanied by the corresponding report from the National Police Corps,” he indicated. And he has guaranteed that the council is “open to all solutions that may be given.”
Catalá has argued that, given that the National Police “in a report made it known that it was appropriate to close the station or that trains would not arrive between one and three in the afternoon, we would like to have the corresponding report at this time on this new situation.” “For us, security is fundamental and within the framework of security, of course, we are open to all avenues of solutions,” he added.
The first mayor has highlighted that the Generalitat is going to reinforce the Metrobús service from this Friday, March 13, and create the Albal-Torrent and Albal-La Torre shuttle to provide service during the hours close to the male. In his opinion, these are “very reasonable” travel alternatives, in case “C-1 and C-2 are maintained in the situation that Renfe established.”
The Government delegate in the Valencian Community, Pilar Bernabé, stated this Thursday that it is the Valencia City Council that must “decide” whether lines C-1 and C-2 reach the North Station. “Here there is only one question: does the City Council want and allow the Cercanías C-1 and C-2 trains to arrive at the North Station? Yes or no?” he asked. Bernabé considers it essential that an extraordinary security meeting be convened to address the issue and that the National Police Corps report that Catalá demands be issued. This was conveyed to the mayor in a letter sent after six in the afternoon this Thursday.
And he insists in the letter that “in the event that the City Council considers that it has a capacity problem due to the celebration of the male in the Town Hall square and surrounding areas that could compromise the safety of those attending, as the person responsible for the institution that organizes this event, I urge you to adopt the appropriate measures in order to guarantee the safety of the citizens.”
