ARCHIVED - Denia loses direct bus links to Alicante as majority of routes are slashed

Five of the six previous direct routes connecting the province’s capital and Denia in the Marina Alta area have not been reinstated

Prior to the pandemic, six daily direct links connected Alicante and Denia, but the bus company, Alsa, has decided to maintain only one of these routes, with the latter now having more links with Valencia than the province’s capital.

The direct route at 7.35pm every day takes 90 minutes, stopping off in Benidorm, with other links taking up to three hours due to the fact that trips between Catalonia and Andalucia are no longer diverted to the Marina Alta’s capital Denia, since the start of the pandemic.

Instead they travel directly to Benidorm, Gandia or Valencia.

Confinements and a drastic reduction in mobility resulted in the frequencies of direct links being slashed because far fewer people were traveling. But despite the fact that travel has returned to normal, Alsa has not recovered the frequencies, leaving residents feeling “isolated”.

There are other routes from Denia to Alicante, five on weekdays and Saturdays and four on Sundays, but these take between two hours and 50 minutes and three hours and 50 minutes to cover the 90 kilometres as the buses stop in all municipalities along the way, including Calpe, Benissa, Teulada, Benitatxell, Javea, Gata and Pedreguer.

There are now calls for the local authority and Denia Council to intervene amid fears that if Asla does not schedule more links, passenger numbers will fall drastically and the service will no longer be profitable, which may result in all routes being pulled.

Image: Archive