The arrival of the new normal will mean the return to the old situation of cars passing through the Via Laietana, passeig de Sant Joan and the rest of the major axes cut off to traffic during the weekends in the process of desescalada. The Barcelona city council has decided to put an end to the court every Saturday and Sunday during the state of alarm and return to the closure of some streets only one day a month, as they started to do before the pandemic.
“It is a measure taken to comply with the distance, now no longer makes sense to maintain,” says the lieutenant mayor of Urbanism, Janet Sanzthat moves the order of the cuts in the next weekend or, as much, on the first of July.
During the summer imperará the old normal in terms of mobility and no restrictions. Subsequently, in September, we will resume the program Obrim Carres with the blocking of traffic for a few hours a day in the month with children’s activities and other attractions that invite you to stroll. According to Sanz, this aspect is fundamental in order to attract a ride” by the road of the citizens in the places usually taken by the car, such as the Via Laietana.
The cut to the traffic throughout the weekend in this artery, whose reformation is the motif of acrimonious debate for years, has annoyed especially to the merchants and restaurateurs on one side and the other of the avenue. “It has been a measure unnecessary in a time when disastrous” sums up the issue Juan Carlos Arriaga, president of the association Born Comerç.
Reverse
The city Council is back to the specific actions put in place just before the pandemic
To lack of tourists, business owners relied on to attract the local customers during the weekends, but have found that even has diminished their presence with respect to the situation prior to the pandemic. A manifesto signed by a fortnight of commercial entities and residents of the area attributed to the difficulty of access by car or bus to the area. “We want to convert it into a ghetto isolated from the rest of Barcelona,” says Arriaga, who stood at the epicenter of the damage in the Santa Caterina market, where yesterday morning the image was far from that of a few months. And not just because of the lack of tourists and the omnipresence of the masks between vendors and customers. Just had buyers. Ramon Durich, the third generation of fishmongers that has just passed the baton, he lamented that where once they numbered five people attending now only had two. And they also had a lot of work. “On Saturdays we usually have a clientele that comes from other neighborhoods of the city, of Badalona, l’hospitalet, Montcada… and that makes the purchase of fresh produce for the whole week. All of them have stopped coming,” says Durich, which puts the focus also on the difficulties of mobility for the residents of the neighborhood: “they Can come to buy, but have no way out, there are many older people with mobility issues and can’t get a family member to look for them”.
The concern for the future of their businesses and their neighborhoods met yesterday a hundred people in the Via Laietana. Some, with the apron on the market. Other, with the jacket in the kitchen. As Iñaki López de Viñaspre, owner of Sagardi, for whom “if they keep the cuts in traffic will kill the tissue business of two neighborhoods[the[elGòtic and the Born]that are already almost pedestrian in its entirety.” In fact, it is those streets free of cars where they move the people of barcelona who decide to walk through this side of the city. Via Laietana, meanwhile, exhibits solitary, more as a place of intersection between the Gòtic and the Born.
The rejection of the measure in the environment of the avenue that crosses Ciutat Vella to the sea contrasts with the good reception obtained in other parts of the city, as the shaft deSants-Creu Coberta. The residents of the neighborhood have endorsed the street without the need of attractive extra, winning a space walk beyond the sidewalks, and merchants are experiencing a rapid recovery, with levels of sales above the expected. “We’d been asking for the pedestrianisation of the street since 2003 and now finally it has been shown that it is a success, both for the neighbors as for the merchants,” he celebrates Lluís Flat, president of the association of Creu Coberta and executive vice president of the foundation Barcelona Comerç.
The satisfaction shown by employers, as well as the approval of 70% of the neighbors in a few surveys conducted over the last few weeks, make it feasible to keep the closure to traffic during the weekends –or at least the Saturdays– permanently, according to the deputy mayor Janet Sanz. Even so, considers that “the last word is left in the hands of the district.”
Feel isolated
The merchants of el Born and el Gòtic believe that the restriction has frightened off customers
The rest of the axes are converted into pedestrian during the desescalada will cut once a month, as much. It will be well with Gran de Gràcia, which was the street pioneer in be exclusive to pedestrians during a few Saturday afternoons a few years ago. It also explores keep you on time in the rambla Onze de Setembre and Fabra i Puig, of the district of Sant Andreu, as well as in the paseo Sant Joan. In both cases, could be incorporated into the program Obrim Carres, next to Via Laietana and Aragó every first weekend of the month.
The rest of the spaces gained by private vehicle with actions tactics, such as the side of the Diagonal and the Gran Via, are still pending of an assessment which will take a final decision in the next few weeks.
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