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Barcelona Wants to Push Cars Out and Reclaim Roads as Public Space

Spain's second largest city believes the added public space could promote social cohesion.
A superblock in Barcelona. Image: Barcelona.cat

Bellicose taxi drivers beeping their horns at pedestrians, blaring car stereos and the mosquito-like whine of a scooter weaving through traffic are a few of the sounds that dominate most Barcelona streets. The city has some of the highest noise levels in Spain, reportedly among the noisiest countries in the world. But local authorities hope that an ambitious plan to transform road space by converting neighborhoods into "superblocks" will bring some respite from the noise—and pollution—of the city's traffic.

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If you stand on a busy junction in the city's trendy Poble Nou district, the noise is almost deafening. Even the famously emphatic locals have to raise their voices to be heard on the phone. Yet a few blocks away, all is calm; here are no cars in sight and children play in the middle of what only a few weeks ago was a busy thoroughfare. This is the city's first superblock, a network of car-free roads that form part of a pioneering urban design plan that has caught the attention of various cities worldwide.

Barcelona inaugurated this superblock last month, the first of many planned in coming months and years. The idea is a re-imagining of transport that will limit vehicle traffic, increase pedestrian space and, the city council claims, promote social cohesion. Barcelona is famous for its modernist grid layout—designed by progressive Catalan architect Ildefons Cerda in the 19th century with the aim of improving standards of living for urban residents—but today the dream of open spaces is frequently more of a mess of traffic and pollution in reality.

Each superblock contains nine ordinary blocks. Vehicles travelling longer distances are limited to the perimeter, while roads inside the block are reserved for residents or taxis, each interior street running only one way to prevent them being used by normal traffic.

Salvador Rueda, the architect of the superblock system, says that changing transport patterns will allow a much richer social life for local residents.

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"A superblock is an urban cell that is designed to free up space that today is used largely for motor traffic," Rueda said in a city council video promoting the project. "This means the pedestrian can become a citizen again, that they will be able to do the things they wanted but were unable to do because they are left with only a thin stip of space, the sidewalk, in which to do so."

Rueda estimates that once fully implemented the Superblock project will see up to 70 percent of road space now reserved exclusively for cars become mixed use or car-free. One junction in the first superblock has already been converted into a recreational area with a basketball court and children's play spaces.

The first superblock has got off to mixed start, though. Local press carry stories of residents unhappy that the new public space has, in some places at least, not amounted to much just yet. Those in the inside of the blocks complain of a lack of parking, while those on the perimeter want less traffic. So while world cities are falling over themselves to hold their own experiments on the meaning of urban public space, locals in Poble Nou seem, for the moment at least, more worried about how far they have to walk to catch the bus.

In principle, at least, it's easy to see the appeal of the scheme. Nine million Spaniards—more than a fifth of the population—live amid noise levels in excess of the 65db limit recommended by the WHO, according to a 2015 study by the Observatory for Noise and Health. Traffic accounts for 80 percent of noise pollution in cities. Air contamination is also a major problem, something exacerbated by the lack of rainfall. Barcelona consistently failed to meet EU guidelines on levels of Nitrogen Oxide—a pollutant associated with traffic, particularly diesel engines—according to local press.

It is perhaps no accident that the superblock principle was born from a culture known for its fierce defense of public space. Superblocks represent an opportunity to extend and enrich public space, according to Janet Sanz, councillor for ecology, urban planning and transport for Barcelona city council.

"This project (…) is born out of the principle that the streets of our cities should be defined as public space, because public space is what makes a city. It is everyone's home, the extension of our houses," Sanz told press earlier this year.

But while the project is often couched in Mediterranean ideas of public space, the appeal of reduced car traffic and less pollution has recently caught the attention of other cities, including Paris and New York.