This is Barcelona – home to sandy beaches, stunning architecture
and one of Europe’s most radical plans to transform the streets.
Today, the city is facing the same problems as many others: roads jam packed with traffic,
crowded pavements, noise, air pollution and, of course, climate change.
In an effort to sort it all out, the city’s iconic square blocks are now getting a 21st Century makeover.
Enter the superblock.
The idea is a pretty simple one - reroute cars away from a given area,
and make space on the streets for people, cyclists and greenery.
But we’re not talking just a few blocks. With more than 500 superblocks now proposed,
Barcelona wants to transform the entire city into a sort of green utopia where
every resident lives within walking distance of shops, entertainment and green space.
That’s no small task for the city with the highest vehicle density in Europe. But if works,
this new model could reshape cities around the world.
To understand where Barcelona is going with all
this you need to get your head around where it’s come from.
Urban planning has long been at the heart of this city. From the Romans
to the Olympic Games – construction here has always formed part of a bigger vision.
But perhaps the most enduring overhaul of its design came from this guy – Ildefons
Cerdà – he’s a pretty big deal in the history of urban planning.
In the 1850s, Barcelona was plagued by dirty water,
sewage, overcrowding, riots and cholera outbreaks.
At the same time, medieval walls around the city were coming down,
and Cerdà hatched a radical plan for expansion.
With the physical restrictions around the city gone, it nearly
quadrupled in size with a grid that linked the existing urban area with
seven surrounding villages – creating the district now known as Eixample.
Within the rigid grid, rows and rows of nearly identical blocks
were constructed around octagonal intersections.
Each was originally planned to contain a mix of shops, upper and lower class housing and a central
garden. It was a pretty bold idea at the time, and one that wasn’t particularly well-received.
Even though cars weren’t invented yet, the roads were designed with 45 degree corners
so the drivers of horse-drawn carts and trams could navigate the city streets more easily.
Fast forward to today, and it turns out that design has actually been pretty useful for cars too.
While Cerdà’s utopian vision wasn’t built exactly how he imagined,
one core principle stuck – mixed use development. That’s the idea that shops,
housing, schools and parks can all exist in the same space. You create a city of mini-communities.
It’s pretty common in many European cities today,
while some places in America generally have separate areas for retail, offices,
parks and housing – and getting between them normally means a car journey.
That’s all to say, Barcelona has a bit of a head start when
it comes to constructing a more walkable city.
Its so-called “superblocks,” or superilles in Catalan, have been talked about for decades,
but were officially introduced as a government-funded project back in 2013.
The city picked a few neighbourhoods, began taking space away from cars
and instead prioritised pedestrians and cyclists.
The idea is that streets become more than just a space where vehicles drive.
They become somewhere people can walk, cycle and relax too. In a city with just over 10%
of its space dedicated to parks and gardens, you’ve got to make space where you can find it.
And Barcelona already has some of the worst air quality in Europe.
Less vehicles on the road means less pollution.
Now, cars aren’t completely banned from superblocks.
Certain vehicles can use the roads to do things like access residences,
make deliveries and provide public transit – and emergency services of course get priority.
But the blocks operate a one-way system with a speed limit of 10 km/hr.
Studies of the first trials from back in 2014 found that pedestrian trips went up by 10%
and cycling by 30%.
The goal is to have roughly 80% of all journeys by foot, bike, or public transport come 2024.
So far, these blocks have been relatively sporadic across the city,
with just a few areas serving as sort of test cases.
But starting in the summer of 2022, the city plans to use USD $45 million to transform a third
of the streets in Eixample – the same part of Barcelona that was originally designed by Cerdà.
Here’s how it’ll work.
The original superblocks in 2016 took over nine city blocks, around 400 x 400 metres in size.
Through traffic was rerouted along their perimeters, and any necessary car
traffic was limited to one narrow lane, with pedestrians having the right of way.
The latest plan is to create a sort of super-superblock,
spanning 21 streets with 21 new pedestrian plazas at specific intersections.
That’ll create more than 33 hectares of pedestrian space, and some 6 hectares of new green space.
But since this isn’t a simple nine-by-nine square,
rerouting traffic is going to be a lot more complicated.
To navigate that, the city can use digital tools like geospatial data
to model existing traffic patterns and air quality before starting construction.
Once work starts, there are a few main things to do.
First is to even out the curbs on the road and make the streets accessible.
The existing asphalt will be removed and replaced
with traditional panot paving stones and granite alternatives in its place.
The new surface is designed to be permeable, and will have a system to collect and reuse rainwater.
Finally, benches, tables and chairs, play areas,
water fountains and trees will be added to encourage people to spend more time outside.
Now, this isn’t a magic bullet. Barcelona has a lot of things that
make building superblocks here easier than elsewhere, but it’s not perfect.
This idea alone isn’t enough to eliminate the need for cars.
There are roughly 800,000 people who commute into the city to work, and a lot of them drive.
To complicate things further, not all locals think the superblocks are so super.
In Poblenou, residents protested against their own new superblock in 2017,
saying it forced them to take long and convoluted routes to get home.
But proponents of the project say that’s sort of the point,
to make options like walking and cycling more convenient than driving.
Of course, there’s always the risk that by making an area more desirable real
estate prices will go up and some of the current residents will be
priced out. Or it’ll be transformed to prioritise retail shops for tourists.
To combat that, city officials will need to implement housing policy that protects locals
alongside the construction upgrades.
Despite the challenges, Barcelona’s plan is a bold shift in how we use our urban spaces
and a reminder that it doesn’t always take a multibillion dollar
megaproject for construction to have a huge impact on our lives.
If the city’s vision proves successful, what’s happening here today
might serve as a whole new model for the cities of tomorrow.
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