''It's absolutely unacceptable that in 2017 we travel more slowly than 30 years ago'', said the Municipal Mayor of Jelsa.
On Tuesday morning, Split-Dalmatia County Prefect Blaženko Boban organised a meeting between representatives of eleven local government units from the island and coastal communities and the Supervisory Board and the Board of Directors of Jadrolinija, Croatia’s national passenger shipping company. The topic of the meeting were transportation links between the mainland and the islands. One of the town and municipal mayors from the central Dalmatian islands who participated in the discussion was Nikša Peronja, the Municipal Mayor of Jelsa on the island of Hvar, reports Dalmacija Danas on November 10, 2017.
Peronja expressed his dissatisfaction with the current speed of travel from the island of Hvar to Split. “We are so close and so far away at the same time. We, mayors from the islands, always advocate for the same position. The shipping line between Stari Grad and Split is 23 miles long, but we use ferries which take two hours in the summer months, sometimes two hours and 15 minutes. It is absolutely unacceptable to us that nowadays, in 2017, we travel more slowly than we were travelling 30 years ago on that same line,” said Peronja.
“Today we have taken the opportunity to highlight this problem. We have presented it to Jadrolinija, and we believe that they will make some progress in this regard,” added the Municipal Mayor of Jelsa.
He also commented on reports that the “Zadar” ferry would take over the line.
“It has been announced that ferry ‘Zadar’ will take over the service. However, since that ferry is already used occasionally on the line, we know that the trip would still take two hours. We have demanded that Jadrolinija try to speed it up so that we could reach Split in an hour and a half,” Peronja said.
Translated from Dalmacija Danas.
