if you know anything Jaume Alguersuaribeyond motorcycles, is communication. Added to the fact that it has entered that sacred age in which one does not have to ask for permission or measure one’s words too much, this businessman has turned a debate on the motorcycle in Barcelona in a hyperbolic praise of the medium, in an almost biblical vindication of the role that motorcyclists play in daily mobility. This man, whose name you may associate with his son, the one who was an F-1 pilot, has managed this Friday to bring together five of the candidates for mayor of Barcelona from the seven groups represented in the plenary session of the Barcelona City Council: Xavier Trias (Together, or Trias per BCN, as you prefer), Jaume Collboni (PSC), Eva Parera (Valents), Anna Grau (Citizens) and Daniel Sirera (PP). Two were missing and it was not a minor thing: Ada Colau and Ernest Maragall, that they wanted to delegate to other members of the candidacy but the condition of Motorists for Barcelona was very clear, only the number one on the list. Alguersuari has opted for diplomacy by value these absencesbut it has been meridian in its section of demands: “I ask that your electoral program, in an exhaustive manner, include a six-month trial so that motorcycles can circulate in the bus lane. And if it doesn’t work, get out.”
This request obliges, before express the opinions of the candidatesto dust off the figure of Alberto Fernandez Diaz. The former PP councilor claimed it for almost a decade, but he never got away with it. Yes, he managed to get the matter analyzed from all points of view. Four reports were written. One bore the stamp of Barcelona Metropolitan Transport and discarded the idea because the buses could lose commercial speed. Another left the municipal Mobility services and they justified his refusal, as happened with the opinion of the Urban Guard, in that it was not a safe approach. And a fourth, which arrived in the time of Trias in the mayor’s office, was presented by the RACC in November 2011 and warned of a “significant” increase of the number of motorcycle accidents in Barcelona and of the danger that car turns to the right from the central lanes would entail.
How many?
As far as it is known, for more than 10 years no one has asked again if it is a measure that can be applied in the case of Barcelona. In cities like Valencia, Seville, Vigo or Madrid Yes, it is allowed, but the number of motorcycles in these cities is not comparable, far from it, with that of the Catalan capital, almost 270,000, adding mopeds, according to the municipal vehicle census. Does that mean that there are 270,000 motorcyclists in the city? No. They can be less, because a person can have several motorcycles under his name, or they can be more, because it is not taken into account the users of the ‘sharing‘ or the people who go ‘package’. In any case, a good tipper of votes.
Of the five candidates, only Parera has said yes, go ahead, motorcycles next to public transport without proof or anything, the day after her proclamation as mayor if necessary. Her intervention has been maximum: outside the low emission zone, 150,000 parking spaces for motorcycles on the surface (almost twice as many as now), creating ‘low cost’ underground car parks (four euros a month, has raised) and return to host motorcycle rallies such as Harley Days, which was held between 2009 and 2016. The Valents candidate received the second best ovation of the afternoon. The first has been harvested by Trias, who without being too specific has even raised a loud “bravo” of Alguersuari himself. Of course, the businessman has confessed in his speech a certain weakness for the former mayor: “He is someone I adore and admire“.
“Mobility, without motorcycles, would be a bigger disaster than it is now”
Trias, who knows how to appeal to the hearts of his public, has made reference to his youth in Viladrau. Years of mountaina motorcycle that faced the bultaco brandished by the family of his girlfriend then, his wife now. “Years ago I stopped being a motorcyclist, but all my children ride motorcycles. My last grandson -I’m 11- is called Mateu and he goes home with a motorcycle and says ‘Look how I fold, like Márquez‘. that’s how we are”… The Junts candidate, but also the PDECat and Democrats of Cataloniahas repeated what he already said weeks ago: “Barcelona is a motorcycle city“. And he added: “Mobility, without motorcycles, would be a bigger disaster than what it is now.” Proposals? Little specificity; at most, a “motorcycle plan that goes in favor of motorcycles and bet on electrification“.
Collboni has not been very specific either, but it is normal that those who have the option to govern get less wet because of what later someone comes to you with the recording. He PSC leader It has started with the chevrons. “I’ve been riding a motorcycle in Barcelona for 35 years”. It debuted with a Vespa 125 and now uses an electric model. He does, he has held, because the bike “is a necessity and the first sustainable media from the point of view of public space”.
Better a pact
You have bet on increase parking spaces “in some areas of the Eixample” and has claimed “responsibility before the pedestrian”. With this phrase, a shy touch, he has been the only one of the speakers who for a few seconds has moved away from homage to the respectable. To differentiate himself from Trias, he instead of plan he has proposed a “pact for the motorcycle“, and has advanced his intention to import a project that is already being developed in some parts of France, the electrification of combustion motorcycles. “With aid of up to 600 euros,” he has specified.
All the candidates have complained about the lack of parking spaces. Some have come to say that there is less than ever. But the truth, according to municipal data, is that on the road there are a total of 84,083 parking spaces. In 2014 they did not reach 60,000. What must be taken into account, however, is that there are many sidewalks on which the presence of motorcycles has been banned in the last eight years, due to pedestrianizations, superblocks, green hubs or because of the desire of the current government to free the space reserved for pedestrians from obstacles.
“You can’t turn your back on the motorcycle, but you can’t give it the ball either”
Grau, always direct, has said that the bike “is sexy and epic”, He has promised to eliminate the bus lanes in the opposite direction and to increase parking in pedestrian zones as well, because, he has argued, “the need to park cannot be ignored“. He has endorsed the six-month test of motorcycles along the bus lane. But yes, first you have to eliminate all the tactical urbanism “that endangers the safety of motorcyclists”, a sentence that the five guests have repeated. He has also defended, after Parera spoke, that “you can’t turn your back on the motorcycle, but you can’t give up on it either.”
out thieves
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Sirera has won the parallel contest for biker candidates. She got on one for the first time at age 14 and up to the age of 55 that she is now, she has had no less than 10 different ones. now a 650cc BMW. “The motorcycle – he has defended – is one of the solutions to the mobility problems that Barcelona suffers. The other is that Colau and the PSC stop governingRegarding the motorcycles in the bus lane, he pointed to Fernández Díaz, sitting in the second row, and recalled his crusade in plenary session. Needless to say, the PP is in favor of the proposal. In his list of projects he has included aid to renew the hull, a discount of 50% of road tax and “throw out the criminals who steal our motorcycles.”
It remains to be seen how the issue of motorcycles in the bus lane progresses. Motorcyclists in Barcelona have in their favor that Trànsit recommended not too long ago that motorbikes use the bus lanes to enter Fabra i Puig, Glòries and Francesc Macià circulating through the already segregated public transport corridor outside the city. They also have the wind in their favor with the decision of the council, without any report, to allow bikes to circulate on the bus road in some streets, such as Creu Coberta, Via Laietana or Pi i Margall. Against, those studies from more than 10 years ago. And the accident rate figures, of course, since the motorcycle accounts for 8% of internal displacements but in the last 10 years, half of the 242 deaths in traffic accidents in Barcelona in the last 10 years were on a motorcycle. In short, it is an idea with a technical value. But also, if there are more deaths, it can have a political price.