Sunday, February 12, 2006

The Road to Mojacar



Welcome to Mojácar. You have just left (the quite simply glorious) municipality of Turre and are heading towards the coast. The road is full of pot-holes and curves, but, in a few kilometres, you will arrive at the fuente where you can turn left towards the playa or right towards the pueblo.

The road was built in 1950 and has received little attention since. It is narrow and dangerous. The last bit goes through a populated area where the huertas are and this final half kilometre or so is heavily used by pedestrians. There is no pavement and a cliff on one side and a drop on the other make it an alarming place to walk, especially if you are dressed in black and on your way to the cemeterio on a visit.

The fuente junction features two zebra crossings, a blind corner and a bus stop. Right on the road. There's nowhere to pull off. This is also the location for the Sunday flea-market where parking is chaotic. The current plan is to make a rather small and cramped roundabout here.

The road is heavily used as it takes both the Turre traffic and also completes the one-way system through the pueblo. The pot-holed, narrow and serpentine road is not safe and the diputación (county council) seems to lack interest in widening it and building either a pavement or an alameda (a separate pedestrian pathway). They have, however, fixed the Turre high-street so one can always live in hope.

It falls to the Mojácar ayuntamiento however to solve this problem. They can either oblige the diputación to come in or they can incorporate the road, or at least the last bit of it, and make the necessary repairs themselves. The money (our money) is certainly there, but appears to be earmarked for rather more exotic use: like attracting visitors rather than attending to friends.

1 comment:

Lenox said...

I should add here, since this article is thrown up by the Google Blog search, that the diputación did come along in April/May and re-surfaced the road from Turre to Mojacar, however, they also erected metal crash barriers on the sides by the Mojacar fuente, making it very dangerous for pedestrians.