Nine meters. This is the maximum height that the Meridiana avenue in the section between Nou Barris and Sant Andreuwhich rises like a viaduct due to the difference in elevation between the two territories. In it sea side a wall is raised that has not always been there: it was in the Porciolismo years when this northern access to Barcelona was converted into an urban motorway. A vestige of the absolute supremacy of the car in the city, whose days may be numbered.
As claimed by neighborhood entities, all political parties committed in writing to reduce lanes and pacify all of Meridiana. including the section between Fabra i Puig and the Sarajevo bridge, the most difficult of all by dimensions, subsoil and transit. He next government of the city will have on the table this uncomfortable and obligatory opening folder.
After the works on the Glòries tunnels, the last piece of the Meridiana promises to become the next pharaonic work of the city. In fact, barely a month ago, the mayor’s executive, Ada Colau, was betting on the most forceful project of the municipal urban planners to date: eliminate the wall completely, bridging the gap with gentle slopes and a boulevard, reduce lanes and demolish the bridge of the Drago. All this, without touching the railway tunnels that circulate below. This was precisely the reform that neighborhood entities on both sides of the la Meri.
erase the border
Beyond sew both trinities –section that did not come out in the renders disseminated–, one of the main objectives of the pacification presented is to bring the neighborhoods of Nou Barris and Sant Andreu closer together. “We must take into account that the old municipality of Sant Andreu de Palomar reached Vilapicina and Santa Eulàlia, and it was because of the opening of the Meridiana that the contact between neighborhoods began to be lost”, points out the president of the AVV de Sant Andreu de PalomarMiquel Ruiz.
In this sense, it is interesting to remember that the avenue zigzags in the Sant Andreu section because Ildelfons Cerdà decided to pardon its historic center when he drew the three “transcendental routes” on the map. [Gran Via, Diagonal y Meridiana]. The rest of the road, up to Fabra i Puig, is straight and the pacification has already been done or is underway. “Now, whoever comes to govern the City Council, will have to continue with the work and end this highway & rdquor ;, Ruiz presses.
A point of view shared by Josep Ferrándiz, from AV de prosperity. In his opinion, “it can be understood that the Fabra i Puig – Sarajevo section has not carried out this mandate due to the pandemic, the supply crisis, etc., but the agreement to execute it is signed by all parties, including the PSC that now seems to back down with the superblocks & rdquor ;. Along the same lines, the neighborhood activist recalls that the political commitment is to pacify Meridiana up to Torre Baró and Vallbona: a sector that fully functions as a highway funnel and that, in any case, would have to reform the Generalitat as the owner of the infrastructure to starting from the Sarajevo bridge.
Less cars and more public transport
“The work is essential to change the paradigm of mobility in the city, we have to reduce the entry and exit of cars,” says Ferrándiz. An objective that, in any case, “has to be accompanied by a mobility plan on a metropolitan scale & rdquor ;, he emphasizes. In his opinion, the solution does not only involve “removing lanes for cars & rdquor ;, but rather “it has to be accompanied by more powerful public transport, park-and-ride parking on the outskirts and more intercity bus stations & rdquor ;.
The development of large park-and-rides at the gates of the capital has been entrenched for decades, “because everyone says what they have to do, but no town wants to have them,” says the president of the Association for the Promotion of Public Transport (PTP ), Adrià Ramírez. In what Barcelona has gotten down to work, he contrasts, it is in the new Meridiana intercity bus station.
Buses, the other front of the debate
While this infrastructure aims to increase bus circulation and bring order to the transfer that many of its users make with the metro station and Rodalies de Sagrera-Meridiana, the project generates disparate positions. It has already received the endorsement of the PTP and, on the contrary, put the AVV of La Sagrera on a war footing. “Although the Meridiana has been very good until Felip II and we recognize the courage of the City Council in promoting it, we are hurt with the bus station project & rdquor ;, asserts the president of the AVV de the sagreraJaume Matas.
“In the first instance, they have told us that we will have 969 daily incoming expeditions and another 783 outgoing; impressive traffic that will generate more queues on the sidewalks and more buses parked in the surrounding streets for drivers to rest”, adds Matas. A problem for the neighborhood entity that, according to him he recalls, “should not occur because the bus station was already planned within the future station of La Sagrera – Alta Velocidad & rdquor ;.
In any case, Matas reports that both his entity and the City Council have already sat down with the Generalitat “to negotiate that the impact is as little as possible& rdquor ;. In his opinion, the key to achieving this is for the concessionaires of the interurban bus lines to accept changes in the logistics and organization of their routes and to reduce passenger boarding and alighting times. Thus, he says, the area would be avoided being so crowded with buses.
How to clear a highway
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The intention of the current government team is to get the paperwork ready so that the next executive can continue with the reform up to Fabra i Puig as soon as possible and, furthermore, have the prior studies that allow him to undertake the most complex section from 2024. As stated by the Deputy Mayor for Urban Planning, Janet Sanz, the action agreed with the entities aims to “dismantle the highway & rdquor; to leave behind “smoke, asphalt and noise”. How? By demolishing the wall, improving the bus network that runs through it, reducing the number of lanes for private vehicles, increasing zebra crossings and creating more space for pedestrians and bicycles.
He cost of the work It has not been disclosed, although Sanz assured that it was “assumable & rdquor ;. Other questions for the next mandate are the phases of this pacification, due to the difficulty of advancing in sections without creating funnels or preventing entry or exit from the city at this point. Nor does it have a defined future obsolete bus station of Fabra i Puig, nor was it disseminated how to fit the avenue with the Ronda de Dalt and the enormous unevenness between this point and the Ribes road.