Barcelona will close more streets to traffic after the lockdown ends

Among the various effects of the current Covid-19 epidemic is a drop in pollution levels. Both globally and locally, the massive reduction in transport, in all its forms, as well as in the output of the different industrial sectors, has brought air quality back to levels not seen in decades.

This situation has led various politicians and administrations to take advantage of the circumstances, with the so-called “new normal” expected after the end of the state of alarm, to modify or promote new measures that favour air quality.

Ada Colau proposes reducing traffic from polluting vehicles

In this way, Barcelona’s mayor, Ada Colau, has stated that
“Pollution is a normality we do not want to return to. We do not want to go back to streets full of cars”, and advocates a revised mobility plan for the Catalan capital.

Thus, the mayor’s plan is to increase the spaces devoted to pedestrians and, also, for zero-emission vehicles, though in this case we are only talking about bicycles.

To achieve this, the transformation works on the selected roadways into traffic-free public spaces, which the city council intends to carry out without a start date yet set, would entail an increase of 21 kilometres of bike lanes and 12 kilometres of new pavements.

Although no announcement has yet been made as to which roads will be modified or closed to vehicle traffic, according to El Diario, both the Gran Vía and the Diagonal appear to be part of the mayor’s plan to close more streets to road traffic. Both essential arteries of Barcelona’s circulation would see their layouts changed.

For the Gran Vía, the plan involves closing the southern and northern sides to traffic: the southern lane would be converted into a pedestrian zone between Plaza de España and Tetuán, and in the case of Avenida Diagonal, the space devoted to motor vehicle traffic would be removed from its side lanes in order to give the space to pedestrians or to Barcelona’s public buses. In both cases, conventional traffic would run only along the central lanes.