Traffic change in Barcelona: bicycles and pedestrians have priority in the super islands

In the morning, half past nine in Barcelona on Valencia Street, the usual rush hour traffic jam: cars move meter by meter, it takes time. Sure, cars now only have two lanes instead of three: a yellow bike lane now runs to the right, the bus lane to the left, and the wide sidewalk to the side. More space to maintain the crown distance of 1.50 meters.

Not only here, on Valencia Street, but throughout the city, emerging bicycle lanes and sidewalks have emerged in recent months: 30,000 more square meters for pedestrians, around 20 kilometers of new bicycle lanes, 60 side streets closed to traffic, so the intermediate balance of the city in Corona fall 2020.

The local government has also used the last few months for the green renovation of Barcelona. Not a reaction to the crown crisis, but a program: with the slogan “Omplim de vida els carrers”, “Let’s fill the streets with life”, activist Ada Colau, who was recently elected mayor, had a young team of politicians and environmentally conscious city planners in the summer of 2015 used. Its objective: to recover public space from car traffic.

Super islands in the urban jungle

Back then it was urgently needed: the northeastern metropolis of Spain, which has become a magnet for tourists, has suffered from high levels of air pollution and noise for years. Each resident has an average of only 6.6 square meters of green space available, in downtown districts even only 1.85, while the WHO recommends at least nine square meters per capita.

The limit values ​​for pollutants established throughout Europe are regularly exceeded in both Barcelona and Madrid. That is why the European Union has long threatened Spain with proceedings before the Court of Justice of the European Communities and severe penalties.

The new team of the Barcelona city council decided from the beginning to create the so-called “Superilles”. The Catalans call their traffic control system “super islands”. Two by two or three by three blocks of houses are combined into one superblock. The cars circulate outside. But only residents and delivery vans can enter at set times, maximum speed of 10 km / h.

The administration of the city of Poblenou approved the first superblock of this type, and it has been in operation since 2017. The old working-class neighborhood in the shadow of the Torre Agbar water purification tower, which rises like a gigantic rocket, had been the heart of Catalan Manchester in the 19th century.

It has been transformed into an electronic city since the 2000s. More and more old brick buildings were being restored or demolished, and instead of textile companies, new companies and university colleges were installed. In addition to the iconic buildings by international star architects, some residential buildings were built.

The new shapes of cars

Does the concept work? To answer the question, a team from SPIEGEL evaluated the data from the navigation provider TomTom. They show in detail how car traffic has changed. Where does it accumulate? Do people move to other streets? Has the total number of cars increased or decreased?

In the analysis of the Poblenou superblock, the measurement data from 2016, that is, before the opening of the block, were compared with those from 2018. The result: in Poublenou it is easy to see that the traffic has moved towards the street Tanger, which runs north, and Pallars street, which runs south.

Almost nothing has changed on the perpendicular roads between the northwest and southeast, but there are not even half the cars in this direction. There is hardly any traffic inside the superblock. There are few cyclists and many students on foot, here they have priority.

The number of infections is still high in the city, more than 4,000 daily cases in Catalonia alone. As for months, it is mandatory to wear a mask everywhere, in shops and restaurants, on the street. However, the neighborhood is a normal and lively daily life, only with a mask. Circular playgrounds protected by wooden fences have been created at the intersections of Calle Sancho de Ávila.

New rules, new battles

But in a nearby skyscraper that borders Roc Boronat, one of the roads, there is a protest banner: “No Superilla” is written on it, “the neighbors want their opinion.”

“Yes, initially there were many doubts, especially on the part of merchants and neighbors,” says Xavi Matilla, 44, chief architect of the Barcelona City Council. He has a good view of the superblock from his office on the outskirts of Poblenou. Now everyone wanted to live in a superilla: “We have requests from all over Barcelona, ​​that’s very popular now.”

Poblenou was the pilot project, although the area has always had little traffic. Matilla says that the experience was necessary to better implement the innovative concept elsewhere. “We had already learned our lesson in the Superilla around the Sant Antoni market and we better involve the neighbors.”

There the superblock was finished since last October. Here, too, TomTom data shows that car traffic has dropped dramatically, on Calle del Conde Borrell now closed to just 15 percent. On the other hand, twice as many cars circulate on the parallel street, Calle de Viladomat, than in 2016. There, but only there, the average speed was reduced between 10 and 15 percent. According to TomTom data, practically nothing has changed in the rest of the streets near the superblock. The example of Sankt Antoni shows: the traffic does not collapse due to a super villa, the effects are minor.

More than 500 new seats have been installed in the cordoned streets, people meet and play chess. But they still have to get used to the rules in the superblock, says a policewoman patrolling the market with a colleague in orange vests, clearly visible. Electric scooters and motorcycles would often ignore the speed limit or, as a shortcut, simply cross the yellow drawings on the floor that delineate children’s play areas. Others park their cars in front of a store, although it is prohibited.