After Valladolid’s city hall removed bike lanes and a central bus corridor, traffic volumes climbed sharply, undoing much of the progress made during years of sustainable mobility reforms. An independent group of engineers and architects tracked the changes using municipal records and regional open data from Castile and León.
Between 2019 and 2023, while the PSOE and Valladolid Toma La Palabra coalition governed, urban traffic fell by 13.9%. After the conservative PP and Vox alliance took office and began dismantling sustainable transport infrastructure, traffic in the city rose by 8.7% in a single year. At the city’s edge, the increase was just 0.9%. The figures link the removal of bike and bus lanes to the return of more cars to the city center. The independent engineers and architects based their analysis on official municipal data.
The regional open data portal of Castile and León publishes annual traffic intensity and speed figures, allowing independent checks on changes along Valladolid's basic corridors.
Avenida de Gijón offers a clear example. Under the previous administration, a dedicated bike lane coincided with a 29.4% drop in traffic on that stretch, information from municipal traffic counters. Once the lane was removed, traffic rose by 24.3%. Engineer Daniel de Santiago, a co-author of the study, points to the "induced demand" effect: "When you expand road capacity for cars, more cars appear. The same drivers who were discouraged before are now back behind the wheel."
The city’s new mayor, Jesús Julio Carnero (PP), has defended the changes, saying that "vehicles move faster and more safely and there is less pollution." The data, but, tells a different story. The study records a steep fall in traffic after the bike lane was installed, followed by a clear rebound after its removal. On Avenida de Gijón, the increase after the lane’s removal almost exactly reversed the earlier reduction. Regional figures also show only a slight rise in traffic at the city’s edge, with the surge concentrated downtown.
Other streets follow a similar pattern. On López Gómez, traffic fell by 21.2% while a bus-taxi lane was in place, then rose by 10.8% after its removal. The researchers note that restrictions on nearby streets also contributed to some of the decline. The broader trend is clear: take road space from cars and traffic falls; return it and traffic rises. The group’s analysis uses direct readings from municipal traffic counters and reflects wider trends in the city’s official data.
After the new administration began dismantling sustainable mobility measures, Spain’s Supreme Court ruled that the municipal order to remove certain lanes was illegal, requiring city authorities to develop a new regulatory scheme.
The city has cut its low-emission zones to a minimum, with traffic falling by 0.6%, a change the study’s authors say had little practical effect.
Bicycle infrastructure has not improved either. The new bike lane along Isabel la Católica, rerouted through a park and cut off from basic streets, has attracted few riders. While usage rose by about 30% at some bike counters in the city, this lane recorded an increase of just 12%. Daily averages between January and June 2024 showed 1,145 cyclists, compared with 834 in the same period of 2026, a drop that even the study’s authors did not expect. The city’s public bike rental system, Biki, has grown more popular, but private cycling has not followed suit, suggesting the new infrastructure is missing actual needs.
City officials have dismissed the study as "the typical report that draws its own conclusions," insisting their reforms have improved bus speeds and bike use. The cost of removing and rebuilding bike lanes has also climbed sharply: the Isabel la Católica project alone went from €200,000 for the original lane to nearly €1 million for the new version, which the study calls less effective.
Valladolid is not alone. Across Spain, cities face pressure to balance car use with sustainable transport. As recent analysis shows, regions that rely heavily on cars also report the highest levels of traffic stress and congestion.
