The Balearic environmental organisation GOB has organised the ‘Rúa del Atasco’ for this Saturday, 26 April, a new protest action as part of the Via Menorca campaign, which aims to demand restrictions on the number of tourist vehicles in Menorca. The march will start at 11 a.m. from the Esplanada square in Mahon, from where a convoy will travel through the centre and end with a rally, the organisation said in a statement.
GOB pointed out that, according to a study carried out by the island council in 2022, 45% of all cars on the island’s roads are driven by tourists, most of which are rental vehicles. According to the same study, it is estimated that there is a 20% excess of vehicles in June and September and 30% in July and August.
For the past five years, Menorca has been legally entitled to limit the entry of vehicles, as is already the case in Formentera and, as the GOB points out, as Ibiza and Mallorca now intend to do. The environmental organisation believes that this shows that it is not a partisan issue, as Ibiza and Mallorca are governed by the same party as Menorca.
‘Limiting tourist vehicles is a matter of awareness of the size of the territory and not wanting to spoil the tourist experience through overcrowding,’ said the GOB. For this reason, the organisation criticises the Menorca Council for allowing time to pass without taking any decision on the matter, while the number of tourists arriving on the island continues to grow every year.
The Council of Mallorca has taken its first step towards the approval of a Sustainable Mobility Law that will regulate and limit the entry of vehicles onto the island through its ports, with special attention paid to rental cars and cars that do not pay taxes in the Balearics. The Council aims to cap traffic saturation, improve mobility and reduce the environmental impact of the growth of the island’s car fleet, especially in the high season.
The Regional Minister for Territory, Mobility and Infrastructure, Fernando Rubio, announced this initiative on Monday at a press conference and signed the resolution that initiates the process of drafting the legal text, which opens a one-month public consultation period on the Council of Mallorca’s website.
The first traffic load study in Mallorca, presented in October 2024 by the island’s institution, reflects an ‘alarming’ increase in traffic on the island in recent years: in 2023, a total of 324,623 vehicles entered Mallorca with drivers, 108% more than in 2017. In addition, 55,000 more vehicles arrived as cargo (without drivers), bringing the total figure to 379,623.