Alejandra Olcese

Updated Tuesday, February 13, 2024-13:37

  • PyR The train, to the rescue: Goodbye to tolls on highways in exchange for promoting rail transport

This Tuesday, the

Government

approved the draft

Sustainable Mobility Law

, whose parliamentary processing slowed down due to the early elections, which will force companies to have a

mobility plan within two years

to guarantee that workers have sustainable formulas for employment. go to your workplace, such as public transport or - if there is not one - collective transport solutions (buses) or teleworking option.

According to the text of the draft law that is used as a basis on this occasion - 132 pages long and which has already been submitted to a public hearing -, "companies will have a

period of two years

to establish a sustainable mobility plan to work for the centers in which there are

more than 500 workers or 250 per shift

. This plan must be negotiated with workers' representatives or, in their absence, with a negotiating commission established

ad hoc

with the most representative unions in the sector, and must include "sustainable mobility solutions that contemplate, for example, the promotion of active mobility,

collective transportation, zero-emission mobility , both

shared

and collaborative

mobility solutions ,

teleworking

in cases where it is possible, among others."

"As a novelty, it must be understood because it is incorporated into this law, but

the existence of these plans is nothing new.

Companies of this size have already been making sustainable mobility plans for a long time, out of convenience. For example,

Renault in Valladolid saves 700,000 euros

in the

Economic Activities Tax

for having a plan of this type, because many municipal ordinances contemplate bonuses for having this type of plans," defended Puente, former mayor of that city.

From now on, these plans will be

mandatory

and will be formulated within the scope of

collective bargaining;

The Government will create a

registry

- similar to that of equality plans - so that companies can present their already agreed plans. "

Green Collective Bargaining is incorporated for the first time into our legal system and constitutes a new area for the development of collective bargaining," the

Ministry of Labor

stated

in a statement.

The Minister of Transport and Mobility,

Óscar Puente,

the main person responsible for the regulation, has explained that its approval is linked to the

Recovery Plan

and is, therefore, a milestone to meet to continue receiving disbursements from European funds. The objectives pursued, he said, are economic - since mobility accounts for 3% of family spending and accounts for 5% of GDP -, social and sustainability - since 27% of total emissions greenhouse gases come from transport, above the European average.

Tolls in cities

The rule also includes

incentives

to encourage the

transport of goods by rail

to the detriment of road transport, which is much more polluting. "We want to put more goods on the train and take them off the road. In our country we have the

lowest rate of freight transport

on the

railway

in the EU ,

4%

compared to the 10% average in the EU, a gap that we have to close close", pointed out Puente, who specified that these incentives will not include the inclusion of

tolls

for the use of roads, as initially proposed.

"I want to remember that the

pay-per-use mechanism

was eliminated and even its study and the mention of its financing was removed when the rule was sent to Parliament. Since what is sent now is the same,

it does not appear in the law.

Payment per use is not contemplated in the law, if it were to be included it would have to be through

amendments.

It does not appear because it was agreed with the Commission to eliminate this figure of payment per use in exchange for three premises: develop railway highways where there is business demand, bonuses of freight charges for five years and an incentive support program to change the modal system from road to rail," he assured.

This possible inclusion of tolls has been a source of

controversy

on multiple occasions, since it was initially contemplated - the director of the General Directorate of Traffic himself admitted that it would be approved at the request of Brussels - but finally the Government negotiated with the Commission

to eliminate this measure

of the milestones committed.

Although there will be no national tolls, the law does "

allow municipalities to be able to place tolls

within urban municipalities.

The law enables but does not obligate

," Puente stated, "it will be the municipalities that decide whether or not to implement a system." of tolls".