Detalle noticia

José Manuel González Castro, mayor of Cangas de Onís; Belén Fernández González, Minister of Infrastructure, Territorial Planning and Environment; Raquel Casado, Provincial Head of Traffic, and Jacobo Cosmen, president of ALSA in Asturias, among other authorities, attended the event.

The plan, which restricts access to private vehicles in favor of public transport, will be operational again between April 8 and 16, coinciding with Holy Week. Likewise, the special transport plan to the Lakes of Covadonga will have a stable calendar from July 1 to September 15 from 2017. The operation will also function, as usual, on the holidays of May 1, Pilar and the Constitution.

ALSA will operate the 2017 Lagos Plan, with peaks of 45 buses and a hundred people from the company involved in the operation. The drivers who will carry out their activity in the Special Plan have the highest level of training to carry out their activity on a mountain road such as the one that connects Covadonga with the lakes.

In addition, the buses, with a minimum energy rating of Euro 4, will continue to increase emission savings.

The Plan facilitates the access of private vehicles to a place of special protection such as the Lakes of Covadonga, in times of greater public influx with the aim of preserving the landscape, located in the Picos de Europa National Park, facilitating an orderly access, with public transport, reducing the impact on the area, increasing the safety of the tens of thousands of people who each year choose Covadonga and Lagos as the most visited place in Asturias by tourists. In addition, the Lakes is the most visited place in the entire Picos de Europa National Park.

The Special Transport Plan to the Lakes of Covadonga coordinated by the Transport Consortium of Asturias (CTA) registered a total of 157,214 users of the ALSA shuttles and taxi service last year 2016; record figure of the entire historical series, surpassing considerably that of 2015, when 138,548 users visited this enclave of Picos de Europa in the bus and taxi shuttle services enabled by the Consortium for this purpose. The month in which the most travelers were counted in 2016 was again August, with a total of 92,965, compared to 86,715 the previous year.

Novelties of the Special Plan

Among the novelties of the Plan for 2017 is having reached a broad, stable and communicated calendar in advance that will undoubtedly facilitate the planning of travelers who choose Asturias for their vacations.

Likewise, access to the Lakes of Covadonga will be limited to buses that do not have at least an energy rating of Euro 4.

In this way, the reduction of the contribution of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere will be increased by another 20 tons, up to 520 tons less, during the entire 2017 plan, than would have been generated by car traffic.

The bus ticket price has been frozen since 2013. In the comparison of public transport to other national park accesses, the price is highly competitive, with a price of 8 euros for adults and 3.5 euros for children from 4 to 12 years old and free for children under 4 years old, for an itinerary that reaches 40 kilometers.