The route change of Line 25, which connects Campanillas with the centre of Málaga and the Teatinos campus, has increased the journey time to over an hour, according to users. They claim the connection has worsened despite the increase in buses.
Since June 15, residents of Campanillas who use Line 25 of the Málaga Transport Company (EMT) say their daily journey has become an odyssey. The Málaga City Council modified the route to improve the connection with the university campus of Teatinos and the Technological Park of Andalucía (PTA), but regular users report that travel time has increased considerably.
Sarai, Diana, and María, residents of Campanillas who use this line daily, agree that the journey time has increased from about 45 minutes to over an hour on some days. “The changes have made the connection even worse than it was, and that's considering that traffic is lighter in summer. When university classes resume, it will be impossible to go from Campanillas to the centre,” says Sarai, who works in central Málaga.
The new itinerary requires buses on Line 25 to travel through the interior of the University of Málaga campus in both directions, which has increased the number of stops. To accommodate the expected demand, the City Council has increased the number of vehicles allocated to this line to 15 and replaced the 12-metre hybrid articulated buses with 18.5-metre ones. However, these measures do not seem to have alleviated the complaints.
Sarai links the public transport issue in Campanillas to the housing crisis affecting the capital. “They are forcing most Málaga residents and those of us who live here to move to distant neighbourhoods like Campanillas because housing prices are prohibitive elsewhere in the city, but they are not improving infrastructure or connections,” she complains. Campanillas has doubled its population in recent years, but transport connections, according to residents, have not evolved at the same pace.
“They don’t let us live close to the centre; they force us to move far from our jobs and, on top of that, lose two hours a day just to go back and forth. It’s outrageous,” says Sarai. Users fear that the situation will worsen with the return of the university term, expected in September, when demand for Line 25 will surge.
The Málaga City Council defends that the modification aims to improve the connection with the main activity hubs in the area, such as the hospital, the university, and the PTA. “We have increased the fleet and the capacity of the buses to provide a better service,” municipal sources assure, reminding that the new route responds to the demands of the campus users themselves. However, residents of Campanillas believe that the measure has benefited students and workers at the PTA at the expense of their connection to the centre.
Line 25 is one of the most used by the EMT, with thousands of daily passengers. The Campanillas residents' association has announced that it will take its complaints to the City Council's Mobility Area to demand a review of the route. “We are not asking for privileges, just a decent public transport system that allows us to reach the centre in a reasonable time,” concludes Sarai.
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