Photo: Barcelona City Council
same enthusiasm, as a Cities of the Future article3
reports. It faced some fierce opposition from
unhappy residents and local busi- nesses complaining about loss of curbside parking and changes of bus stops and street direction. Some long- term residents reacted angrily about the change of location of bus stops and routes, arguing that now they had to walk one or two blocks further to the nearest stop, which before had been right on their block. Of course, others discovered a brand new bus stop virtually on their doorstep, when they were used to walking further. One of
the main challenges in
installing the Superblocks is the abundance of curbside parking in Barcelona.
Residents and com-
muters alike tend to believe that on-street parking is a car owner’s basic right and that no administra- tion should be allowed to limit or take it away. Barcelona has more than
140,000 on-street parking
spaces, more than half of which are not regulated. Many residents leave their cars parked outside their apart- ment block for months without using them. Every time the city starts to regulate parking in an unregulated area, it faces protests.
REFERENCE
1 The Guardian. Superblocks to the rescue: Barcelona’s plan to give streets back to residents; 2 Barcelona City Council: The implementation of the Superblocks programme in Barcelona: Filling our streets with life 3 Cities of the Future. Barcelona’s first Superblock, Fighting the Power of Habit and Wavering Political Will
SOURCES • Barcelona City Council. The implementation of the Superblocks programme in Barcelona: Filling our streets with life (available for download in Catalan:
http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/ superilles/ca/presentacio) • Government of Catalonia. Air Quality Action Plan, horizon 2020: Working for cleaner air in the agglomeration of Barcelona
http://tiny.cc/airfinalweb • The Guardian. Superblocks to the rescue: Barcelona’s plan to give streets back to residents. 17.05.2016
http://tiny.cc/guardian-blocks • Cities of the Future. Barcelona’s first Superblock, Fighting the Power of Habit and Wavering Political Will. 27.09.2016
http://www.citiesofthefuture.eu/barcelonas-first-superblock-fighting-power-habit-wavering- political-will/ • Barcelona Ecologia. Superblocks
http://www.bcnecologia.net/en/conceptual-model/superblocks 67
The citizen participation process in the Superblocks model
The majority of the 570,000 cars
registered in Barcelona, however, are parked in public or private off- street
garages. That means that
eliminating some of the curbside residential parking in the city would affect less than 10 per cent of the vehicles. But having a parking spot on your doorstep is non-negotiable for some residents, who consider it a de facto right. Thus, the hardest in the Superblocks’ implementation will indeed be challenging people’s long-standing habits and making a cultural shift in the way people view and use the streets. Some have also argued that it is
not fair that some residents should enjoy the pedestrian areas in the Superblocks while
others, in the
outer streets, face roads full of traf- fic, noise, and pollution. The first Superblock in Barcelona was also criticised from the opposition par- ties within
the city council. The
strong reactions to this first expe- rience with Superblocks has shown that they will face greater opposition than anticipated. Salvador Rueda, the director of the Urban Ecology Agency, the agency that designed the Superblock model, said however that a lesson learned from earlier Superblocks was that initial opposi- tion gave way to acceptance, in part because of a growing consensus about the benefits. At the same time, the Superblocks only
are not being deployed in
Barcelona. Vitoria (Basque country), Ferrol and La Coruña (Galicia) and Quito (Ecuador) have also started considering the implementation of that concept. We can only hope that more cities will follow suit, if not to use the Superblock concept, at least to create space for the people.
FYI
Daniela Stoycheva is Project Manager at Polis Network
DStoycheva@polisnetwork.eu
This article was written with the kind cooperation of Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia) and Ajuntament de Barcelona (Barcelona City Council)
Social and Economic Impacts of Transport
BARCELONA
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