Barcelona

Ada Colau's team, whose 2016 pilot scheme for superblocks in Poblenou caused controversy, improved it by making it more flexible in the area around Sant Antoni market. The council now seeks to expand this model to all Eixample, in a plan it has called Eixample Superblock. In practice, it wants to give pedestrians priority in one in three streets. These will not be tarmacked, there will be vegetation on the sides and only one lane for traffic, which should have minimum use and speed will be limited to 10km/h. There will also be new squares in intersections. "We need a transformation to create a Barcelona to live in, aware of the fact there is no planet B. Pollution is our opponent", explains Barcelona councillor for Urbanism Janet Sanz.

Around 350,000 cars go through Eixample everyday - more than on both ring roads combined - and it is one of the areas with the most traffic. During the worst of the pandemic, tactical transformation using paint were put in place in some streets in Eixample, such as Consell de Cent and Rocafort, to widen pavements. These generated controversy, since they altered habitual codes of public space, with pedestrians at the same level as traffic. The safety of using Jersey barriers was also questioned.

The project to transform Eixample has not received universal backing. Salvador Rueda, who came up with the idea of superblocks and founded Barcelona's Urban Ecology Agency, believes they are not enough. He thinks they are a "good start" to start removing traffic from the streets redesigned as green axis, but demand the original superblock grid be applied. This would mean traffic would go around the edges and the inside would be liberated for locals, instead of pedestrians and traffic sharing a space, which could lead to confusion. He also proposes the plan be extended to all of Barcelona, beyond the limits of Eixample.

RACC believes the Council is putting the cart before the horse and accuses it of focusing too much on those moving within the city and forgetting out-of-town commuters.

"If the strategy is local and partial, then it only adds more pressure", claims Cristian Bardají, RACC's Director of Mobility. The automobile club claims that if traffic lanes are reduced without there being improvements in public transport or in park-and-rides, in the short term it only makes "the starting point worse".

Rueda, on the other hand, believes "Barcelona has no time to lose to complete the Superblock grid". It is an option that can be quick and cheap -€300m with tactic urbanism- and would liberate 70% of public space with only a 15% drop in traffic. How can this be compensated? Making parking much more expensive. "This is the true urban toll. It is more equal, because you pay little if you only want to go into town to do something and it allows a reduction in traffic which is necessary for superblocks", Rueda claims, while also demanding the plan is carried out fast, like in Vitoria. He believes Barcelona is taking an "overly gradual" approach. Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, director of ISGlobal's atmospheric pollution programme, demands 500 superblocks be implemented throughout the city. He estimates this would avoid 700 premature deaths caused by pollution. Every year, a thousand people die in Barcelona due to problems associated with bad air quality, representing 7% of natural deaths, 23% of which occur in Eixample.

Collectives such as Eixample Respira believe the city is being too slow in eliminating traffic lanes. They are behind the so-called School Revolt, which cuts off traffic outside schools once a fortnight. They denounce that 30% of schools in the city exceed average levels of nitrogen dioxide everyday. This exposure affects around 30,000 children, more than half of whom go to school in Eixample. They demand authorities act faster, especially in the areas close to schools. If outdoor seating for bars could be found urgently, they say, even greater urgency should be applied to defending schools. Colau's team plans to intervene towards the end of this year in 92 schools and make 16 streets more pedestrian-friendly. Guille López, a spokesperon for Eixample Respira, proposes interventions also on streets which concentrate the most traffic, such as Aragó, where there are also schools. The City Council, with some disagreements within the En Comú-Socialist coalition, prefers a gradual transition so that the city can absorb changes

Another bone of contention is the purpose of each transformation. According to architect and former councillor Daniel Mòdol, over-specialisation should be avoided; that is, pedestrian streets should not only have eateries and housing. "If making areas pedestrian-friendly destroys economic activity it is not a good measure", he warns. The risk, taken to the extreme, is that Barcelona would become a residential city like Sant Cugat, with plenty of housing and green spaces but without places to work. This often entails more mobility, as inhabitants have to commute.

The other side of the debate is cafés' and bars' outdoor seating. During the restrictions, they have gained space - often placed on roads - protected by yellow Jersey barriers mayor Colau herself admits are ugly. She says they will gradually be replaced by four new prototypes for outdoor seating. "Tactic urbanism was done quickly and cheaply, but it is important to recover space for pedestrians", says Ole Thorson, who directed traffic planning in Barcelona City Council between 1970 and 1989. By June 2022, it is expected that no concrete blocks or other temporary elements to separate outdoor seating from traffic will remain in place

The city's bars and cafés now have 10,174 more outdoor tables, adding to the 24,000 there were before the pandemic. All of the space these have taken away from cars will be maintained as long as the new council prototypes are installed. According to the council, outdoor seating takes up 30,000 sq. m. previously used by cars.

Ole Thorson believes cafés' and bars' outdoor seating should take space away from cars, not pedestrians. He also believes there should be a specific network of streets for walkers going from one end of the city to the other

To reduce journeys by car, which represent 19% of the total, and reduce emissions linked to traffic, Barcelona has started to apply measures to make access with private vehicles more difficult. The most signifcant measure is the low-emissions zone (LEZ).

There is hope the low-emissions zone will reduce NO2 emissions by 15%, thus respecting maximum levels set by the WHO once mobility returns to normal (it is still 15% below pre-pandemic levels). However, both the European Environment Agency and the City Council admit that this will not be quite enough. "It is impossible to assess the impact the low-emissions zone is having, because covid has distorted everything", explains Miquel Ortega, coordinator of Contaminació Barcelona platform, which points todelivery of goods inside the city as one of the key elements. It is usually done through highly polluting diesel vans and has increased greatly due to online commerce.

The City Council is studying applying a new tax -known as the Amazon tax- which could be ready by the end of the year. It would tax home delivery, with the aim of centralising goods distribution in certain points, so that the last mile can be made more sustainably. The ex-president of Catalan Rail Service FGC suggests using the rail network to distribute goods and reduce van traffic inside Barcelona.

Implementing an urban toll is also on the cards. Janet Sanz says this option is still being studied, but that it will depend on the results obtained by the low emissions zone (LEZ) after the year of the pandemic. In any case, it would require an agreement between different administrations, as happened with the LEZ. A complementary measure to LEZ is increasing pay-to-park spaces to 90% of the city by 2024. The goal is to put an end to big free car parks in districts such as Zona Universitària or Vall d'Hebron, which are now only free for residents. "Many people prefer to drive to work if they can park for free. Parking in the street has to be much more expensive", says Núria Pérez, a researcher in mobility at Barcelona's Institute for Regional and Metropolitan Studies (IERMB).

Colau's team says car parks chould be built close to train stations in commuter cities, so that commuter don't bring their cars into Barcelona. However, they admit the need to improve the park and ride network in these towns: Barcelona now has seven park and rides with a total of 324 parking spaces, with a fourth about to be opened in Cornellà. Catalan train company FGC offers 4,050 parking spaces in 37 car parks -and is preparing three more- while Adif has 71 car parks with 9,342 parking spaces. Ex president of FGC Ricard Font admits it is "very difficult" to find large spaces in the metropolitan area and suggests building upwards, "as if they were blocks of flats".

And what is the alternative to cars to going into Barcelona? Jane Sanz believes it is Rodalies, the Catalan commuter and regional trains. It is clear that improving the rail network is a challenge, with investments now overdue: state rail infrastructure company Adif promised €6.3bn investment over the next decade. Users complain trains are late, full, expensive, infrequent and break down often. As for other infrastructures, work to connect the tram lines is expected to start this year, and metro line 9, after years in limbo, now has a €946m financial plan to go ahead and complete the stretch that goes through the centre of the city. Transforming the area around the future La Sagrera station and reforming Sants train station are two of the key projects Barcelona must take on in the short term. "We must progress towards a city where the car is only used when absolutely necessary, and vehicles are greener", says Sanz.

The president of the Barcelona section of the Catalan Association of Architects (COAC), Sandra Bestrate, believes it is essential to "look after" those who take public transport. When arriving by train in Barcelona they should not reach the current "crater" around Sants, but to a well-connected by bike and public transport with the rest of the network. "Coming by public transport should always be the best option". Salvador Rueda, who worked on the development of the bus network at the Urban Ecology Agency, insists that frequency of public transport must be increased, with buses or train every four or five minutes. Miquel Ortega adds that the bus-HOV lane on Diagonal towards Baix Llobregat must also be put in place to make it easier for those arriving in the city by means other than the car.

The challenge is to complete the bike lane network and make it metropolitan. For architect and expert in urban transformation Maria Sisternas, some key bike lanes are yet to be built. This is the case of Passeig de la Bonanova, which is the only long horizontal street in the area and is full of schools. "It is absurd that cyclist have no continuity and have to take side streets while cars take the shortest and straightest route

Barcelona also lacks the cycing culture of other European cities, according to Carles Benito, president of Barcelona's Bicycle club (BACC). He says a sign of this is the fact that, when they have children, families think about buying a car, not a family bicycle, or the fact many public buildings don't have a space for bikes. He also demands specific regulation on new bike lanes and that people should stop criminalising cyclists and electric scooter users.

To advance towards its 2030 goal, Barcelona hopes to add more green areas through three big new parks: one covering the railway tracks in La Sagrera, one in Can Batlló and another in la Marina del Prat Vermell. It has planned a series of interventions to gain green space wherever possible: rooftops, walls and even in little interventions, such as untarmacking Eixample. Every little helps.

Daniel Mòdol urges institutions to give shape to the new neighbourhood of La Marina del Prat Vermell, in Sants-Montjuïc neighbourhood, along with its park. "It must be an absolute priority". Around 11,000 flats are to be built and a 2.4-hectare park. This area, the area in La Sagrera and the small neighbourhood to be built in the old Mercedes-Benz factory in Sant Andreu, with 1,400 new flats, are part of the 22@, the areas of Barcelona where big transformations are planned in the short term.

The City Council wants a more natural growth of vegetation, especially in those places it considers bio-diverse such as Doctor Pla i Armengol gardens in Horta, inaugurated in 2019. However, to apply the new model, it is necessary to choose well the kind of vegetation that survives in the city: Glòries park, where a section of lawn has been roped off so the grass take hold, is a clear example of what ought to be avoided. "We are looking for the perfect vegetation: that it survives well in the city, does not cause allergies and is diverse, to contribute to lowering the temperature in the city", says Janet Sanz.

Vegetation coverage and non-tarmacked ground are elementary, according to Salvador Rueda, to mitigate the heat in the city. He calculates that more vegetation in the streets and rooftops and streets which are not tarmacked, temperature in Barcelona could fall by between two and three degrees Celsius. However, he warns that green rooftops have to compatible with solar panels, as the city needs to produce energy.

Through its Mechanism for Renewable Energy, Barcelona's City Council is seeking an alliance with the private sector to accelerate the placement of solar panels on rooftops and energy-efficient renovation of buildings. The idea is that these projects could be carried out without cost for buildings' owners. Instead, the City Council and the private sector would pay and then recover their investment through the energy the new panels would produce. The challenge is to increase the city's renewable energy production by 66%, which right now stands at 140GWh per year.

As well as multiplying the number of solar panels on rooftops, the plan also seeks to renovate buildings. The struggle against greenhouse gases has a domestic side to it: housing is responsible for 20% of emissions. This is because Barcelona's real estate is very old: 70% of homes were built over 70 years ago. "To have a greener city we need to advance towards renovation", says architect Daniel Mòdol.

Barcelona Councillor for Urbanism Janet Sanz believes renewable energy is the main priority and demands changes so that Endesa no longer has a monopoly on energy distribution. This should allow cheaper energy and guarantee energy is sourced from renewables.

Buildings' age is not the only housing problem in Barcelona and pollution and the lack of green space are not the reason 30% of current inhabitant in Barcelona would like to leave the city either. High rents and house prices mean many Barcelonians feel thrown out of their own neighbourhoods, nad seek more affordable solutions in the metropolitan area or further afield. The pandemic and the possibility of working from home have convinced many to leave Barcelona and move to places where housing and living costs in general are cheaper. The cost of housing in Barcelona is 13.3% than the average in Catalonia. The average price of flats is €4,075.5 per square metre, and average rent is €905.39 per month.

The covid crisis has made us notice the noise we live with, the lack of green spaces and the high volume of traffic: Barcelona is the European city with the highest density of cars: 6,000 vehicles per square kilometre, double the density in Madrid and more than triple the density in London. The challenge is to for the city to continue being an attractive place to live. "Every 50 years, there is a change of urban model. We have inherited the 80s model, which is now in crisis", says Vicente Guallart, former chief architect of Barcelona and founder of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. he defends a city developed in continuity with nature, with good connexions to green areas and where buildings create energy. This is called a bio-city.