Would it be different round of Dalt of not having had on the nape of the neck breath of the 92 Games? Would it have been covered as a series if it had started earlier? Would it have had more and better shoulders? He second beltname than the ‘porciolismo‘ granted the road from Montbau to Valldaura (more for here it was the Hebron Valley promenade), it is one of those olympic milestones that have marked the life of Barcelona for the last 30 years. allowed that urban highways Those entering the heart of the city began to lose lanes, but it generated, at the foot of Collserola, an uncomfortable barrier, in the shape of a channel, as if it had to absorb the lava from the Tibidabo volcano so that the Catalan capital would not be the Pompeii on this side of the Mediterranean.
That road sinkhole will be one of the issues of the electoral campaign of the municipal ones of May 28. His coverage, to be more specific, something that the residents of the artery have been demanding since the ribbon-cutting of the ring road, which includes the Ronda Litoral. It happened on April 23, 1992.
These 30 years in the open of the Ronda de Dalt They have had the odd neighborhood victory. In 2007after four years of work and an investment of 18.4 million euros, the sections that pass through the neighborhoods of the Guineueta and Canyelles. Cause-effect: after years of protests, traffic cuts and mobilizations, the city council ended up kneeling. He who does not cry, does not suck. Let them tell the taxi drivers, for example. As in the rest of the road the complaints were less loud, the consistory drew a thick veil.
Since then, the only thing that has clouded over is the section between Sant Genís dels Agudells and La Teixonera, about 200 linear meters that were completed in January 2020 at a cost of 17.2 million euros. What there is, to this day, is a conflict between the claims of those affected, fueled by almost chimerical promises, and the narrowness of a municipal budget that gives little margin to new investments, those that go beyond current spending.
break the gap
Xavier Trias I was already dealing with this issue in the 2007 electoral campaign. So, the cost of covering the Ronda de Dalt between the squares of Alfonso Comín and Karl Marx It was 50 million, according to CiU calculations. “This project will allow the mountain to go down to the city and gain a lot of green and free space,” the candidate said on May 11 of that year. The leader of Junts, in an interview with this newspaper, assured in February that covering the artery “is much more environmentally interesting than that of Consell de Cent”, in reference to the first green axes that are in their final phase of execution in the Eixample.
“It would take eight to 10 years to be done. It depends on the cost studies, but every year you have to dedicate money to it and move forward”
Trias assured that the price, about 400 million, is only double what it costs extend the tram along the Diagonaland launched his own promise to finish off the job: “It would take eight to 10 years to be done. It depends on the cost studies, but every year you have to dedicate money to it and move forward. Covering the Round we would gain 250,000 square meters of new green area. We would plant 25,000 trees and we could install 50,000 square meters of solar panels.”
If there has been any progress in this mandate, it has been due to the insistence of the PSC, who wanted to score the goal with those 200 meters of new roof and achieved that investment in exchange for approving the 2016 budget credit extension. The mayoress met with the residents in May 2016. In the Vallcarca library, she presented them with a “realistic” proposal of reform of the artery that fled from the “maximalist and pharaonic” agreement of the previous mandate (2011-2015), in which not a single stone was stung.
There was indeed a problem of created expectations. Days before, the residents had already met with the deputy mayor of Urbanism, Janet Sanz. They left the meeting, these are his words, “dejected, disappointed and pissed off“, among other things, because the coverage of the Ronda de Dalt was the project that received the most support (more than 10,000 proposals were received) in the participatory process to prepare the municipal action plan. Curiously, the second was remunicipalize water. Neither one nor the other.
neighborhood anger
Tony Mateo He was then the president of the Montbau residents’ association. “They gave us a ‘power point’ about city communications, pedestrian spaces, bike lanes…, but what does all this have to do with the coverage of the Ronda de Dalt? & rdquor; He confesses that they felt “humiliated & rdquor ;. The problem is that mental image that they had created in the previous mandate, when they took it for granted that with 400 million they had the highway hidden. By lowering the project to reality, the Comuns deflated the soufflé.
Lluis Cairell He was president of the Teixonera neighborhood association and shared a very similar feeling. “I am already 66 years old and I do not like to be treated as if I were ignorant. The feeling that we were left with [de aquella reunión con técnicos municipales a principios de 2016] is that what they say goes to mass, that our opinion doesn’t matter at all. They have deceived us and they have disrespected us.” Again, the false illusion, enlivened by a government with other priorities.
The coverage had been agreed in March 2015, two months before Trias lost the mayoralty, and provided for that investment of 400 million to have everything ready in 2023, that is, more or less now. HE they even awarded preliminary projectsbut with Colau, and pushed by Jaume Collboni (PSC), only progress was made in that short section that is in front of the Vall d’Hebron market. As is lawful, the new government had other urban, social, mobility and housing plans that passed ahead. Own schedule, come on.
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In that meeting with Colau in the Vallcarca library, the mayoress presented them with the Comuns plan. The budget was cut in half and coverage would not be complete. “I understand that they are nervous and angry because they have been putting up with excuses and lies for decades, but today we we have come up with a viable plan of coverage of the round”, said the leader of Barcelona en Comú at the time. Of those 200 million, only 8.6% have been executed, which corresponds to the section inaugurated in 2020. It was never heard from again.
Pending tasks
The government that comes out of the elections on May 28 will find this brown in the first drawer of pending urban projects. In case of attacking it, you may run into a new problem. What about the Ronda de Dalt, as it passes through Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, where it is also uncovered in some sections? Shouldn’t it also cover the Via Augusta above the Bonanova. And what about the Coastal Round? Isn’t it also a huge scar between the city and the sea? Then there is the development of 22@ norththe Morrot, the plans for the surroundings of the Camp Nouthe park that goes over the La Sagrera railway projectthe transformation of Moll de la Fusta, finish gloriesLa Rambla, Meridiana, the neighborhoods of La Marina, the opening of a street to go from Drassanes to Can Tunis by the maritime line… The city, which although it doesn’t seem like it, is still half built.