The reopening of the Manacor-Artá Train requires the construction of 40 km of new bylanes.

The construction of the whole infrastructure is equivalent to 91 cuarteradas (1 cuarterada= 7.103 m2)

The Anti Train Association has analysed the plans to open the railway from Manacor to Artá and the corresponding information about the environmental impact. Whilst the Government provides arguments on the supposed benefits of the train / tram in Manacor, the Anti Train Association wants to denounce the destruction that this pharaonic infrastructure would cause in the Llevante region.
One of the principal impacts of the project is to have to construct 40 bylanes to provide access to all of the affected properties that lie adjacent to the path of the railway. These new bylanes will occupy more than 200,000 m2. This is equivalent to a highway of more than 40 km long and 5 m wide. In comparison, this equivalates to constructing an extra lane on the Palma to Manacor motorway. In other words, to open 33 km of railway it’s also necessary to construct 40 km of access roads and bylanes.
On top of this it would be necessary to build 17 bridges and tunnels. The repositioning of 45 electrical installations and lines and 7 water lines. This is without counting the three electric transformers needed for the electric train / tram.
In study, an expropriation of at least 411,000 m2 would be necessary. This space plus 231,000 m2 owned by SFM – Servicios Ferroviarios de Mallorca (management and operations) add up to the equivalent of a finca of more than 91 “cuarteradas”. This whole area would be occupied by access roads, infrastructure, ramps, drives, garbage skips and functional structures in a state which, according to the study of GRUSAMAR-INECO of Julio 2008 (taken from the study of environmental impact simulation of this project, page 72 and others) would be permanent, irreversible and non-recoverable.
To give a visual idea, the 91 cuarteradas in total that are necessary to reopen the railway line from Manacor to Artà, is comparatively equivalent to the area occupied by the four lanes and central reservation of the motorway from Manacor to Palma.

Anti Train requests a comprehensive public transport and rejects work that causes an irreversible, unrecoverable and permanent negative environmental impact.

Anti Train is not against a new transport system, it’s actually in favour of one, but not one that reaches only 5 urban nuclei – actual itinery of the train project – abandoning the rest of the coastal towns and other dispersed areas in the Llevant.
We are in favour of the conservation of the island as it is, we don’t want more motorways nor more destruction of our territory with new infrastructures, whether they be new roads, new access bylanes or new railways.
We believe the region can have a punctual, efficient, clean and ecologically sound transport system using a network of buses and minibuses, operated and managed by serious and efficient concessions. Like it or not, to connect the coastal population and dispersed areas of the Llevant region we will still need an auxiliary network of transport anyway to connect to the 5 urban nuclei that have a train station.
We are a pioneering nation in renewable energies, we must also try to be so in ecological transport taking advantage of all the existing technology, utilizing the resources we have but without destroying anymore of our surroundings nor harming the landscape, the flora, the fauna or the fragility of the countryside.

Antecedents
In 1993 by means of R.D. 2232-93 the C.A.I.B. transferred the competition of Transporte ferroviario. In 1994, according to S.F.M company, it was decreed 10-94 on 13th January (B.O.I.B-15/94) the idea of uniting Palma with Artà by means of the train, in force from 2003 with the initial phase, Estacio d Enllaç – Manacor. This was determined by political forces with the support of particular interests initiated through illogical propaganda with unasserted and incomprehensible indications as to whether there was approval or rejection to this idea, or to the study of environmental impact and the project data of 2008 July. Today we only present the more recognizable environmental impacts to them by showing that the project published in July of 2008 and set out to public exhibition in November of the 2008 differs to the report of environmental impact at the beginning of 2009. Until now the public had not been informed on the environmental cost of this project and therefore the option to be in favour or against was an illogical and irrational one.
Now, with this information at hand The Anti Train Association considers that this project is detrimental to the Llevant region and offers very little ecologically nor would it benefit in efficiency because the proportion between the investment and the transport coverage is immensely out of proportion.