The foto above. This view showing people - kids playing, friends chat, people read, people stroll, tranquil. This location was a car choked, deafening, polluted, intersection before super blocks. The trees, shops and apartments predate the land use transformation. Imagine the change. This view is deep deep paradigm shift.
Barcelona - Oct 17, Work in Progress, more to come for Barcelona and pushing back on cars in Europe.
Barcelona was perhaps my most anticipated destination to see pushing back on cars. My growing interests in car push back, thanks to activism in Eugene, set me up for a jolt one evening in 2019. Checking the articles in Vox magazine on line, I came across the title, “Barcelona’s Radical Plan To Take Back Streets From Cars.” Within five minutes I was totally smitten with super blocks.
The first part of describing my visit to Barcelona is the visit to Barcelona in 2022. Following this first part will be an update to Barcelona’s tango with cars. There has been push back on the push back.
After reading that article in Vox, I was eager for more info. I found a non profit on line in Barcelona that had an interest in urban land use. I e mailed asking them about super blocks. A week later I had a message from Toni. An architect with a focus on theater design, but also with a keen interest in urban land use and the super blocks. We exchanged e mails, became friends and I included Barcelona in this covid delayed pushing back on cars research trip. I would be staying with Toni and his wife Sumpta for a week. Even more, he would introduce me to a friend who had actually helped design one of the super blocks.
The main attraction for this visit to Barcelona was to check out the super blocks. I didn't know that while I was focused on super blocks, there were already shifts taking place in Barcelona’s approach to reducing air pollution and improving public well being that would suggest, super blocks may be supplanted by another, but closely related, urban intervention known as “los ejes verdes,”or the green axis. For this account of my visit to Barcelona, I will start with superblocks and later, graft on more about the green axis.
I arrived at Barcelona’s main train station in the early afternoon. First task was to unpack my bike, ditch the bike box and find my way out of the huge train station to the surface and figure out which way to go. I was super excited! I had a paper map showing the way to the Gracia neighborhood via the Diagonal.
Barcelona is a pretty easy place to navigate. Unlike Paris, the central part of Barcelona is mostly a grid with one major cross town boulevard, the Diagonal, which is, diagonal to the grid.
Barcelona, hemmed in by the sea to the east and steep hills to the west, is more densely populated and also has far less green space per capita than most other European cities. And like many cities all over the world, over the past couple generations, cars have come to take over more and more public space with increasing impact and cost to the well being of people and the environment.
A directive from the European Community 25 years ago told Barcelona that the city would need to address its problems with urban noise, air pollution and inadequate space for parks and recreation.
One might ponder the question, is a growing concern about public health and the environment because greater affluence means nations can afford cleaner air and water and open space or is it because environmental and social conditions are deteriorating to such a degree, they can’t be ignored any longer? These questions remind me of the assertion, we need to generate an elevated level of wealth so we can afford to clean up the mess we’ve made creating so much wealth.
In response to the EU scolding, Barcelona rolled out its 2013 to 2018 Urban Mobility Plan. Private transportation vehicles were identified as the primary cause of the health and well being issues pointed out by the EU’s directive and would be the target for change described in the Mobility Plan.
Barcelona may not be overtly blaming capitalism but it is blaming one of the most important products of this economic system on both sides of the Atlantic [and all over the world], cars and the infrastructure they require and the public space they trample on and degrade.
Referring back to another part of the Primer, external costs. Recall from the critique of capitalism which included a considerable amount of detail explaining external costs and specifically using cars and suburbia as the source of many expensive external costs relating to the environment and public health. Barcelona’s Urban Mobility Plan is a great example of effort by a major city to address the social and public health external cost of cars.
The Mobility Plan had many features. One was to make better use of transportation assets Barcelona already had. Barcelona has an extensive and very modern subway system. There are buses and commuter rail. The Mobility Plan would take a closer look at how to make better use of those assets.
A look at the City of Barcelona’s website explaining the Urban Mobility Plan, much of it in English, has a common refrain, both clearly stated and more subtle. The Plan identifies as basic to the Mobility Plan - safety, sustainability, fairness and efficiency. Each is explained in no uncertain terms, private mobility, aka, cars, are at odds to each ideal. Everyone of them. There is no language in the Plan that calls for more cars and to make it more convenient to use them. Every goal and intention in the Urban Mobility Plan is to make better use of existing public street assets to facilitate reduced use of private mobility.
No action is more ambitious and far reaching than the super blocks. The Barcelona Urban Mobility Plan calls for perhaps the most exciting interventions, perhaps in urban history, for pushing back on private cars. Copenhagen and Amsterdam are rightly celebrated for their bike friendly reputations but they did not go all in for cars to the extent of Barcelona. Barcelona’s task is to repair the damage already caused by cars. If the Mobility Plan was a movie, superblocks would be the star.
You can hover over the fotos below for a caption and to enlarge the foto.
Barcelona - Oct 17, Work in Progress, more to come for Barcelona and pushing back on cars in Europe.
Barcelona was perhaps my most anticipated destination to see pushing back on cars. My growing interests in car push back, thanks to activism in Eugene, set me up for a jolt one evening in 2019. Checking the articles in Vox magazine on line, I came across the title, “Barcelona’s Radical Plan To Take Back Streets From Cars.” Within five minutes I was totally smitten with super blocks.
The first part of describing my visit to Barcelona is the visit to Barcelona in 2022. Following this first part will be an update to Barcelona’s tango with cars. There has been push back on the push back.
After reading that article in Vox, I was eager for more info. I found a non profit on line in Barcelona that had an interest in urban land use. I e mailed asking them about super blocks. A week later I had a message from Toni. An architect with a focus on theater design, but also with a keen interest in urban land use and the super blocks. We exchanged e mails, became friends and I included Barcelona in this covid delayed pushing back on cars research trip. I would be staying with Toni and his wife Sumpta for a week. Even more, he would introduce me to a friend who had actually helped design one of the super blocks.
The main attraction for this visit to Barcelona was to check out the super blocks. I didn't know that while I was focused on super blocks, there were already shifts taking place in Barcelona’s approach to reducing air pollution and improving public well being that would suggest, super blocks may be supplanted by another, but closely related, urban intervention known as “los ejes verdes,”or the green axis. For this account of my visit to Barcelona, I will start with superblocks and later, graft on more about the green axis.
I arrived at Barcelona’s main train station in the early afternoon. First task was to unpack my bike, ditch the bike box and find my way out of the huge train station to the surface and figure out which way to go. I was super excited! I had a paper map showing the way to the Gracia neighborhood via the Diagonal.
Barcelona is a pretty easy place to navigate. Unlike Paris, the central part of Barcelona is mostly a grid with one major cross town boulevard, the Diagonal, which is, diagonal to the grid.
Barcelona, hemmed in by the sea to the east and steep hills to the west, is more densely populated and also has far less green space per capita than most other European cities. And like many cities all over the world, over the past couple generations, cars have come to take over more and more public space with increasing impact and cost to the well being of people and the environment.
A directive from the European Community 25 years ago told Barcelona that the city would need to address its problems with urban noise, air pollution and inadequate space for parks and recreation.
One might ponder the question, is a growing concern about public health and the environment because greater affluence means nations can afford cleaner air and water and open space or is it because environmental and social conditions are deteriorating to such a degree, they can’t be ignored any longer? These questions remind me of the assertion, we need to generate an elevated level of wealth so we can afford to clean up the mess we’ve made creating so much wealth.
In response to the EU scolding, Barcelona rolled out its 2013 to 2018 Urban Mobility Plan. Private transportation vehicles were identified as the primary cause of the health and well being issues pointed out by the EU’s directive and would be the target for change described in the Mobility Plan.
Barcelona may not be overtly blaming capitalism but it is blaming one of the most important products of this economic system on both sides of the Atlantic [and all over the world], cars and the infrastructure they require and the public space they trample on and degrade.
Referring back to another part of the Primer, external costs. Recall from the critique of capitalism which included a considerable amount of detail explaining external costs and specifically using cars and suburbia as the source of many expensive external costs relating to the environment and public health. Barcelona’s Urban Mobility Plan is a great example of effort by a major city to address the social and public health external cost of cars.
The Mobility Plan had many features. One was to make better use of transportation assets Barcelona already had. Barcelona has an extensive and very modern subway system. There are buses and commuter rail. The Mobility Plan would take a closer look at how to make better use of those assets.
A look at the City of Barcelona’s website explaining the Urban Mobility Plan, much of it in English, has a common refrain, both clearly stated and more subtle. The Plan identifies as basic to the Mobility Plan - safety, sustainability, fairness and efficiency. Each is explained in no uncertain terms, private mobility, aka, cars, are at odds to each ideal. Everyone of them. There is no language in the Plan that calls for more cars and to make it more convenient to use them. Every goal and intention in the Urban Mobility Plan is to make better use of existing public street assets to facilitate reduced use of private mobility.
No action is more ambitious and far reaching than the super blocks. The Barcelona Urban Mobility Plan calls for perhaps the most exciting interventions, perhaps in urban history, for pushing back on private cars. Copenhagen and Amsterdam are rightly celebrated for their bike friendly reputations but they did not go all in for cars to the extent of Barcelona. Barcelona’s task is to repair the damage already caused by cars. If the Mobility Plan was a movie, superblocks would be the star.
You can hover over the fotos below for a caption and to enlarge the foto.
The modern city of Barcelona has its own fascinating history. Barcelona dates back over 200o years as a trading post of ancient Carthage. It was taken over by Rome. Ironically, the Romans installed their standard grid pattern to ancient Barcelona. The old Gothic Quarter along the shoreline is the historical center of Barcelona. During the medieval period, Barcelona developed into an important port, culture and administrative center while several small towns grew up nearby.
By the later 1800’s and into the twentieth century, Barcelona’s population increased rapidly along with industrialization and overcrowding. The civil administration called for ideas to address the overcrowding and a plan from Ildefons Cerdà, a Spanish engineer who was a pioneer urban designer, was chosen to address the issues. That plan became the district in modern Barcelona known as l’ Eixample, or translated from Catalan - the Extension.
The Eixample fills the oblong zone, flat in terrain, between old Barcelona and its port and several nearby small municipalities inland including Gracia. Like the Roman iconic urban planning design almost 2000 years before, Cerda’s plan is based on a street grid except Cerda’s blocks are slightly chamfered - the corners are slightly flattened.
Some of Cerda’s ambitious public open space and park ideas were never realized. Like many cities in the mid and later 20th century, cars were on a roll. Instead of the spacious and healthy streets called for by Cerda’s design, cars overran the plan and delivered exhaust and noise.
Enter the EU public health directive and Barcelona’s response, the 2013 Urban Mobility Plan which was based on creating super blocks and green axes while also improving transit.
The super blocks are the reason I made my visit to Barcelona., as an effort to both reclaim urban space from the the predations of cars and fill in the design ideals from Cerda’. Cerda’s grid is the point of departure for super blocks. Imagine a rubik’s cube. Nine squares, three by three. Imagine each square is a residential block from Cerda’s Eixample plan, and these are large urban blocks are made up of stores, shops at ground level with apartments 3 to 8 stories high. Thousands of people live on each block. The cracks between the rubik’s cube blocks are streets. The only cars allowed on those interior streets are cars of residents, emergency and delivery vehicles. Through traffic is confined to the streets at the exterior of the super block. That’s just the start.
When the interior streets within the super block intersect, cars can only turn right. They cannot cross the intersection. And the cars within the super block can only travel at a walking speed.
If the superblock were a movie, the co-stars would be the intersections within the superblock. Those noisy, congested, unsafe, inefficient, unsustainable, unfair intersections become public plazas.
Cars can move slowly along the edges of the placa making the right hand turns but the interior becomes an urban park. Cars can’t cross over it. Recall Houten, Holland where you cannot drive a car across the center of the new town. Car advocates would criticise the design saying its inconvenient to cars. That's the idea.
Visiting one super block with Toni and Roco, we arrived at what appeared to be a park with a paved surface. Kids were kicking a soccer ball. Uninvited and un skilled, I joined in. The park had benches, tables and large container plants. The periphery of this open space had full sized trees, business at street level and apartments above. I saw no cars.
The park was a former busy, loud, fuming, unhealthy intersection. This park was the product of super block planning. I knew I would be seeing transformations like this, that's what the visit to Barcelona was about, but still, actually being there and seeing what a purposeful intervention to a typical car centric intersection had become was one of the most impressive examples of taking a problem and turning it into something positive I had ever seen.
The streets within the super block leading to the intersections have been redesigned as well. Leading up to the new placa, typically, a car lane remains but the other car lane [or perhaps two car lanes] have been re-worked for bikes and walking, outdoor furniture, new container landscaping and perhaps art work. Starting out with the super block interventions, paint is often used on the pavement to indicate changes and much of the container plants and outdoor furniture are movable. The idea being, adjustments can be made as needed.
The super blocks did not happen overnight. There was a great deal of public discussion and public input. Many people opposed the idea, particularly business owners because they assumed less car traffic would mean fewer customers. In photos of the areas to be affected, one can see signs on peoples’ balconies,”no superilles,” no super blocks. Other concerns were gentrification, the super blocks might attract people who liked the idea of living in a neighborhood with more quiet and improved air quality and could afford to pay more to live in these desirable locations.
Even people who were strongly in favor of superblocks had criticisms. My friend Toni set me up with his friend Roco who was a city planner and helped design one of the super blocks. I had a three hour personal tour of the Pobleneau Superblock and Roco provided play by play commentary. He felt there was too much money spent on the first super blocks and that money should have completed the basic changes for the blocks and then let the locals take the lead for finishing the work to suit their particular wants and needs.
Meanwhile, the money not spent on details could be used to start more superblocks. Roco was also concerned about business gentrification. The upgrades to the block would attract higher end businesses that would displace the mom and pop stores already there. Roco pointed out several examples he was familiar with. One in particular, a fancy new restaurant where there had been a local eatery.
I did a lot of walking and biking in the several completed super blocks. At full buildout over who knows how many years, there would be over 500 super blocks covering central Barcelona. So far, some of the affected blocks have been more established residential streets with full sized trees. Others have been newer areas with more multi story commercial buildings. I saw some blocks looking to be under construction with a lot of equipment, barriers and disruption to cars, bikes and pedestrians.
At one intersection under transformation but already requiring the right turn, Toni had a heated argument with a car driver.
Places that had more time to settle into their new super block status were simply beautiful. Trees, quiet, people playing chess in public, kids, bikes, people chatting. Virtually idyllic where there used to be automobile mayhem only a few months earlier.
I did a lot of bike exploring besides the super blocks, my base was in Gracia. Just about everywhere in Barcelona slopes towards the Mediterranean. Of course, the beach is a destination for a lot of people. The seaside promenade was busy even early in the season. People were swimming, youth were showing off their soccer skills, others playing volleyball. Promenade side restaurants had many patrons for both meals and people watching. I was looking for a frisbee but saw none.
One day, I did visit the old town called the Gothic Quarter. The streets were very narrow, too narrow for cars. There were many small shops and then, boom, an expansive placa appears with beautiful architecture, a couple fountains and tall date palms. And a lot of people. A friend who grew up near Barcelona told me this square was not a family friendly place when she was a girl. It was gritty and a place one could easily find drugs.
La Rambla was nearby, Barcelona’s famous pedestrian promenade. There were a lot of people, food carts, souvenirs. Quite a scene and the center of attraction was people walking.
There are other parts of central Barcelona that have beautiful boulevard parks, Sant Joan in particular, was my favorite. The 15 blocks of Sant Joan are near la Sagrada de Familia, another most popular landmark in Barcelona. This beautiful promenade predates not only the super blocks but also the Eixample district. People have enjoyed strolling with beautiful architecture, trees, fountains, shops and places to eat for centuries. The space between the lanes of traffic are ample and the cars are going slow enough, the traffic noise is minimal. People ride bikes in lanes next to the cars or simply bike in the wide promenade. I have done both.
My friend Toni lives in the Gracia neighborhood. Gracia started out as a convent 400 years ago. It became a small agricultural town over the centuries, began to industrialize in the late 1800’s and was annexed to become a part of Barcelona in 1897. It does not have super block potential because the streets and squares, dating back 400 years, already accomplish much of the super block agenda. The blocks are small, the streets are narrow and many of them are already car free or car light. Still, the area is short of parks and green space.
The area of Gracia I became acquainted with, makes up for the shortage of parks with its simply charming placas or plazas. In particular, I spent a lot of time just sitting and enjoying Placa Virreina, about a five minute, slow bike ride from Toni’s place, several blocks away. Varreina is the feminine Catalan word for viceroy.
Virreina is the public living room of its part of the neighborhood. It's a square shape, has large trees all around, outdoor cafes on opposite ends of the square, a water tap and benches. A large church, Sant Joan Baptista and its popular front steps for sitting, occupies the upper slope side of the placa. There are businesses at ground level with four and five floors of apartments above, many with balconies. Only one perimeter street has slow and minimal traffic although bikes and electric scooters pass across the middle of the placa.
There is a range of architectural styles. The placa is well maintained. Large planters prevent errant cars from entering several side streets. The square is about half an acre in size. The surface is pavers, not asphalt or concrete.
On a late summer afternoon, one can expect to see kids kicking soccer balls, children skate, benches are near capacity with people talking, the cafes are well patronized. I also had some pleasant conversations sitting on the church steps.
I saw one google foto of a youth making an obscene gesture at the google photographer.
I have seen photos of neighborhood events in the Placa Virreina that included giant puppets, fireworks, music and colorful floral designs laid out on the pavement. I was totally enchanted with the place having spent, literally hours, just sitting on the steps of the church or a bench enjoying the Catalan culture of Gracia.
Toni and Sumpta’s home is another point of interest. The narrow street counts far more people walking or biking than only the occasional car passing by at walking speed, it's far too narrow for two cars. Toni’s place has an iron gate to the front door, there are no windows. The wall is worn stucco. Nothing suggests what might be inside when you step up and into the residence.
Inside, the home is light with several colorfully painted walls, the decor is totally contemporary. Toni and Sumpta’s place would be a great feature in an architectural home magazine. Nothing fancy but very harmonious. Not large, not small. Two floors. They have travelled a good deal so tasteful artifacts populate glass and wood shelves.
Toni has a small office, there’s a small library, dining area, living area, small but spacious kitchen with bright yellow walls and a large window that looks out to a courtyard with lemon tree, roses, various potted plants, and steps down to a patio area. Toni and Sumpta have a part of a larger courtyard with privacy walls, shared by six or eight residences. Modest sized trees partially screened views between the neighbors. Just beautiful.
Gracia has a form of urban living that is super dense in residential terms. Deficient in public green spaces it still does not feel closed in. Yet it has an urban ambience and human scale that I had never seen before. On one walk up the street with Toni, we passed a temporary outdoor workshop of people constructing lifesize figures with paper mache for an upcoming neighborhood festival. People stopped to watch and chat.
That was 2022.
Another urban mobility intervention in Barcelona is called eix verd or green axis. I was not aware of this approach during my visit to Barcelona in 2022 even though I crossed over the street Consell de Cent, many times, that is the focus of this update. And, there was an eix verd intervention in the works when I was in Barcelona. It deserves attention now because green axis interventions have taken place in Barcelona since I was there and the results of the first large intervention is controversial. The implications are substantial.
Recall the Eixample District that is urban infill dating back to late in the nineteenth century, between old Barcelona and the surrounding inland municipalities. This district has become the most densely populated area of Barcelona, has the most cars and is deficient in green space for its residents.The dominant feature of this urban infill zone is its grid street pattern.
The green axes is a street intervention that is a cousin of super blocks and its intended outcomes are the same as super blocks, to reduce use of cars, encourage active transportation, facilitate social interaction, and create more green space to make Barcelona more livable.
While the super blocks are square shaped, recall the Rubik's Cube of nine blocks as a unit, the green axis approach starts with a single street but it also affects the intersecting streets. Concell de Cent, known for its congested six lanes of traffic, is an important street running twenty blocks east west in the midst of Eixample.
The green axis intervention has made remarkable changes. The goal of the transformation has been to better link existing park areas at both ends of the street but also create new open spaces, like the super blocks, by taking several of those lanes and transferring its use to bikes, walking, socializing and to create green space with landscaping, art and public furniture. Delivery and resident cars would travel only at walking speeds.
Streets at right angles to Concell de Cent have also received enhancements. Some intersections with cross streets add modest landscaping and public furniture while four street intersections within the 20 blocks have received major attention to greatly limit cars. Two blocks will focus on greenery and rain infiltration while two will focus on open space for public events.
Consell de Cent is the first of several east west streets in the Eixample area to receive similar treatment.
But then, unexpected push back against the green axes. For one, Barcelona has a new mayor since I visited and the new mayor is not committed to the super blocks and green axes.
A group of business persons brought a law suit against the public health and greening changes made to the street Consell di Cent. A judge determined that the changes made did not follow correct procedures as required by a forty year old rule and because of that infraction, half of the 20 block green axis must be returned to cars as it was before the intervention.
That is an amazing push back on Barcelona’s transformation.
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