Sheet metal, not yet, but paint, yes. The municipal government of Barcelona has decided to say goodbye to the current mandate with a whole declaration of intent. The ‘superilla’ of Sant Antoni is being renovated (benches, litter bins, planters, chess tables…), but, above all, the paint on the road has been renewed, which seemed to bother a part of public opinion so much, at least on social media. With the green axes of the rest of the city under construction (also called ‘superilles’ although the name doesn’t really fit them), Ada Colau’s team wanted with this new coat of paint to carry out what in terms of Catholic liturgy It would be the confirmation ceremony a few years after the baptism, in this case, five. The matter, however, does not end here. In the absence of the May elections deciding who will govern the city for the next four years, Barcelona City Council has already commissioned a draft to update the ‘superilla’ of Sant Antonithis time yes, the plate.
In its own way, Sant Antoni was originally, at least in part, a laboratory from which conclusions were drawn or, in other words, an opportunity to practice trial and error. It has been useful when designing now what is intended, for example, in Consell de Cent, Rocafort, Borrell, Girona and Pi i Margall, that it is visually clear that the pedestrian has the highest priority of passage, not the car. The recently commissioned preliminary project to reform Sant Antoni has as its main motive to eliminate that aesthetic difference that still exists between what was once a sidewalk and what was a road for vehicles.
past mistakes
Urban planning often has a high component of unpredictability. There are several known antecedents. On the occasion of the Olympic Games, enthusiastic hopes were placed in some projects that ended up being resounding fiascos. The purpose of turning the Moll de la Fusta into a leisure area faithful to the emergence of design at that time ended terribly wrong. The premises closed and served as a refuge for Moroccan minors who lived in dirt and rats. That’s partly why they were shot down. It is just one example of how it is not easy to foresee what will go wrong.
Sant Antoni is not, by far, that failure, but what the urban planners designed did not take into account (to put it in some way and without intending to offend) the conditioned reflex of the pedestrian. As in a Pavlov experiment, so many years of walking on the sidewalks and not on the roads have generated more than a habit. As a historical note, when the car became popular in the United States in the 20s of the 20th century, there were heated confrontations because those who were on foot did not understand why they could not travel anywhere on the street as had been common since the beginning of civilization. The next step that was difficult to impose was respect for the traffic light. All this is relevant because in Sant Antoni, although with frequent exceptions, there are many pedestrians who use the old sidewalks to walk, instead of occupying all the space that urbanistically belongs to them.
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The first deputy mayor, Janet Sanz, accompanied by a representative of the Sant Antoni neighborhood association, Roser Vilaró, has announced that the preliminary project for the improvement of the ‘superilla’ has been commissioned, to go beyond what is called tactical (painting, for example) to the structural, like turning the intersection of Borrell with Parlament into a real square. He has made his announcement and, above all, he wanted to take stock of what, in his opinion, is “a success”.
Sant Antoni (and Vilaró has agreed at all times) recovered commercially after the pandemic faster than the rest of the city. “The economic value of transactions in Sant Antoni between 2018 and 2022 has increased by 38.8%, while in the same period, in the city as a whole, it has increased by 18.5%”, explained Sanz. That, in any case, has been the plus, because the initial purpose of the reform completed in 2018 was pacify the area in traffic, noise and pollution. In each of these categories the objective has been met. Traffic in the neighborhood as a whole has decreased by 17%, NO2 pollution at some junctions by 40% and nights on some streets are four decibels quieter.