It’s game day at the Metropolitano. After 6:00 p.m., three hours before the start of the match, the police monitor the entrance to the Canillejas metro in anticipation of a large influx of athletes. Neighborhood residents … They warn that taking the subway will become impossible within minutes, and that using transportation, whether public or private, will be even worse. This inconvenience is not strange to football days or events. This is only one factor that exacerbates the problem that residents of this northern area of the capital have been suffering from for more than two decades. They claim to have spent nearly 20 years “behind bars”, isolated, although connected in many ways.
In short, the Rigas neighborhood is “extremely poorly connected” and eternally waiting for the central, regional and municipal administration to do its part. But whoever waits despairs. Thus, residents are raising their voices again today to demand more bus frequency, especially Line 77, opening the entrances and exits of the neighborhood and accelerating the promise of opening Cerkaniyas.
Rigas, an isolated neighborhood
On the roads
fountain: private detail/ ABC
Rigas, a neighborhood isolated by roads
fountain: private detail/ ABC
“It’s amazing because we’re surrounded by the A-2 and the M-40,” explains Susanna, 38, who tries to recount the adventure she goes through to get to her workplace on America Street every morning. “On the way there, I leave half an hour early to avoid traffic, and it only takes 15 minutes, but the return trip is a 40-minute drive.” This neighbor from Pegaso refuses to take her only bus, the 77 line, because in the morning she is usually “delayed by traffic in the single-lane tunnel” and in the afternoon, the trip takes “more than an hour.”
“The neighborhood is buried, and even though they are trying to create more new exits, since they all lead to the M-40, we always end up in traffic.”
Also affected, they demand direct access to Alcala Street, where many municipal services are located, such as the library or the district council. Also unblock the Canillejas roundabout and solve the small black spot “20 or 30 meters” where all vehicles leaving Madrid, from the A-2 and Alcalá Street, intersect with those leaving Pegasso in the direction of Madrid.
Sonia, a “lifelong” neighbor, also warns against this oath. “When I try to exit on one side of the neighborhood, it faces the M-40 and there is a traffic jam. I try to exit on the other side, towards Alcala Street, and there is a traffic jam. The neighborhood is buried, and even though they try to create more new exits, since they all lead to this road, we always end up in traffic.
For this reason, he rides the car an hour and a half before his daily consultation at Ramon y Cajal Hospital, where his disability is treated. “When there’s no traffic on the M-40, it takes 15 minutes, but in rush hour it’s epic,” says the 55-year-old, who has “never” moved from the area where she was born and raised. These roots allow him to look back and even talk about attempts to isolate the neighborhood from its origin.
“They wanted to stop us from getting to the M-40, which was the only exit we had to go to the hospital. But thanks to our parents, we were able to make sure that they did not close the neighborhood and gave us this little exit to M-40 so that we could get to Ramon y Cajal Hospital, which was the hospital that suited us. And then, later on, they got a bus that goes directly from EMT, but you have to go to Canillejas, so it’s still a problem for the elderly in the neighborhood. The solution, in his opinion, is the opening of Cercanías en Rejas from which “you can get directly to the hospital” and other areas that many San Blas residents demand to save time on a daily basis.
“On weekends, you don’t think about taking the bus and even less so at Christmas because it’s impossible to come. “We’re like sardines in a can.”
“We have had this famous dilemma in the neighborhood for 50 or 70 years, since the station was built, with all the infrastructure already completed.” Pablo, 47, talks about the ghost train, the one that they promised would pass, but never did, and which will help a lot with the routine of Madrid residents. Well, today, this Pegasso resident has two options to go to work: either walk about half an hour to Canillejas, then take another bus towards San Fernando, or get to line 77 which takes him to this bus shelter in Canillejas but that is always “a lot of work”.
However, if you have Cercanías, it will take a 10-minute walk from your home. For this reason, the opening of this station was required to be accelerated, in addition to the reinforcement of Line 77, especially on weekends and Christmas. “On Saturdays and Sundays, don’t even think about taking this bus, it’s the only bus that goes through Pegasso, through the Plenilonio shopping centre. “We celebrate Christmas,” he says after 44 years of living in the neighborhood. “And even less so at Christmas because it’s impossible to come. We’re like sardines in a can.”
“If the night bus only extends by stops
“It’ll just take two more minutes and I’m not going to risk anything happening to me on that trip.”
But the one who really suffers from the lack of transportation on weekends is Nour, a young woman who came of age at the beginning of the year and resigned herself to giving up staying up late so as not to be stranded on the night bus. “There were times when I started crying because I was nervous because I couldn’t make it to the round of 77 and I couldn’t go home. “Because the night bus stops right in the central part of the weekend, and I have to walk home for 10 minutes through empty streets and people get robbed,” he says, so much so that in his case he is asking to expand the night line from the stops he has now created and make the 77. “It will only take two more minutes to do it and I wouldn’t risk anything happening to me on this route.”
This is not the only time you feel insecure. And also in the morning, on her way to university, when she goes at 6:00 a.m. to the bus stop for line 77, which is on “a not very crowded street, where there are factories” and where, she says, she cannot spend much time alone waiting for the bus. What’s more, when he sometimes “skips” his stop when he sees that there are a few people waiting. In this case, he chooses to ask his grandparents to drive him to Canillejas, where he then takes the metro to the university arriving on time at 8:00 AM.
For now, it will continue like this. Because there is hardly any news from the three departments responsible for the bus and train network. Only the Municipal District for Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility confirms that “various options for the neighborhood are being studied with the Regional Transport Association”. At the conclusion of this edition, the Ministry of Transport had not provided a response to the ABC regarding the opening of Cercánías. But neighbors will continue to raise their voices for decent transportation, because they say it’s time for the neighborhood to stop living behind bars.