From xxxxxx <[email protected]>
Subject Cars Dominate Cities Today. Barcelona has Set Out to Change That.
Date September 12, 2019 2:20 AM
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[ The city is creating a network of walkable, mixed-use
“superblocks.”] [[link removed]]

CARS DOMINATE CITIES TODAY. BARCELONA HAS SET OUT TO CHANGE THAT.  
[[link removed]]

 

David Roberts
September 11, 2019
Vox
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_ The city is creating a network of walkable, mixed-use
“superblocks.” _

, Javier Zarracina/Vox; Maysun for Vox

 

Salvador Rueda is gripped by a vision for Barcelona.

In his mind’s eye, he sees a city no longer dominated by
automobiles. Most streets once devoted to cars have been transformed
into walkable, mixed-use public spaces, what he calls
“superblocks,” where pedestrians, cyclists, and citizens mix in
safety. Each resident has access to their own superblock and can
traverse the city to visit the others without the need for, or fear
of, motorized private vehicles.

It is a utopian vision, nothing any existing major city has achieved,
but Rueda may just live to see it come true, or at least some version
of it.

After years working in city government, Rueda started the Urban
Ecology Agency of Barcelona [[link removed]], a public
research consortium, in 2000. He’s a noted expert in the field of
urbanism, an author of books, and an in-demand speaker, but above all,
his life has been a long and committed affair of the heart with his
home city. He has been immersed in Barcelona urban planning for almost
40 years.

Now his vision for the city has found its way into an urban plan that
has the backing of the current municipal administration. It is
currently being implemented, with the audacious goal of replicating
Barcelona’s five existing superblocks, ahem, 495 more times.

[Salvador Rueda (1953), biologist, psychologist, engineer, ecologist,
and father of the superblocks of Barcelona, poses for a portrait in
the superblock located next to the Sant Antoni Market on October 15th,
2018.]

Salvador Rueda is a biologist, psychologist, engineer, ecologist, and
father of the superblocks plan for Barcelona.   Maysun for Vox

[Embedded in the pavement of a plaza in in the Gracia neighborhood
superblock: a 19th-century plan for Barcelona that never came to pass.
Taken October 14th, 2018. Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.]

Embedded in the pavement of a plaza in in the Gracia neighborhood
superblock: a 19th-century plan for Barcelona that never came to pass
[[link removed]].   Maysun
for Vox

The plan, which contains not only superblocks but comprehensive
programs for green space, bicycle and bus networks, and much more,
will not eliminate cars in the city, or deny one to anyone who needs
one. But it will radically reduce their prevalence, the amount of
space they occupy, and demand for their services. If it is fully
implemented (a task that could take multiple administrations, even
multiple generations), it could make Barcelona the first plausibly
“post-car” major city in the world — a place where most streets
are not for cars and most people don’t have one.

Predictably, there remains a great deal of controversy over whether
the full vision is possible. Implementing it will involve challenges
ranging from short-term traffic problems to blowback generated by
gentrification. It could be weakened or corrupted over time, like
other utopian urban plans before it.

But at least for now, Barcelona’s urban plan is the most ambitious
thing going — a more rapid, progressive, and humane transformation
of a city, in a shorter span of time, than any other global city,
certainly any American city, has dared envision.

Barcelona strives to be walkable, but still, the cars

“Attention!”

This is what Rueda says when he wants to make a point. We are walking
along the periphery of the superblock that surrounds Barcelona’s
newly renovated Sant Antoni market, in a neighborhood on the city’s
southwest side.

Under the city’s supervision, a four-square-block area, roughly
5,000 square meters, has been pedestrianized, reclaimed from cars and
given over to people for a mix of uses. Only residents’ vehicles and
delivery vehicles enter, and when they do, they are on the same level
of pavement as pedestrians and must match their speed.

[The superblock next to the newly renovated Sant Antoni market,
popular with parents and people who want to chill out for a bit. Taken
October 14th, 2018. Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.]

The superblock next to the newly renovated Sant Antoni market is
popular with parents and people who want to chill out for a
bit.  Maysun for Vox

We have come upon a crosswalk, with a small ramp leading to a painted
pathway across the street. At the curb, there’s a trash can on one
side and a lamppost on the other. The tableau is, to my eye, entirely
unremarkable.

“Attention!”

Every detail of this crosswalk, Rueda notes, has been carefully
attended. The edging of the curb is a special rigid granite. The trash
can and lamppost were chosen for their harmonious aesthetic and
durability. This precise configuration — the ramp, the can, the
post, their spacing and appearance — is replicated at new crosswalks
throughout the city.

The configuration of crosswalks is not something most pedestrians will
consciously notice. But over time, it is experienced as a pleasantly
familiar phrase in a kind of urban vernacular, as though the city were
murmuring encouragement to be on foot. Everything is where you expect
it.

It is through attention to these kinds of details that the city
attempts to be comprehensible, navigable, and welcoming at a human
scale, to people not in cars.

“Is everywhere the same solution,” Rueda says, regarding the
lamppost with satisfaction. “Is the grammatical to read our city.”

(This is probably the place to note that Rueda declined the services
of the proffered translator, opting instead to deliver a continuous
stream of insights on urbanism in a kind of singsong broken English,
like a hyper-erudite Dr. Seuss. Reader, the effect was delightful.)

Rueda’s enthusiasm for the fine-grained texture of urban life —
the spacing of trees, the height and orientation of signs, the
structure of intersections — is infectious. His discourse on
crosswalks comes amid a two-hour stroll filled with such details, each
one revealing some new facet of the city’s logic and history, like
little veils being peeled away.

As I stand inspecting the newly intriguing trash can, I can’t help
but be struck by a contrast. To one side of us is the superblock,
filled with people walking with their shopping bags and small dogs,
sitting in clusters, everywhere talking and talking.

[A sign in the Poblenou neighborhood announcing a superilla, or
superblock, ahead and the diversion of traffic.]

A sign in the Poblenou neighborhood announcing a superblock ahead and
the diversion of traffic.   Maysun for Vox

Or at least they look like they’re talking. The low buzz of
conversation is drowned out by what’s to our other side: cars. A
long line of belching, honking, slowly advancing cars, now routed
around the superblock.

Their pungent fumes are a reminder that even with its unique
advantages, Barcelona faces an uphill battle. It is never easy to claw
back land from private vehicles.

But pushing back the tide of cars that swamped the world’s cities in
the latter half of the 20th century is the next great task facing the
world’s urban planners, and they are beginning to take it on.

Cities are beginning to dig out from under cars

Recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
[[link removed]] have lent new urgency to the fight against
climate change, which will hit cities especially hard, not just in
storms and sea level rise but in heat waves, water shortages, and
supply chain disruptions.

For cities, global warming yields two central challenges. They must
reduce their carbon emissions while simultaneously becoming more
resilient, better able to weather climate extremes. Both challenges
mean reducing the number of private vehicles.

Transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions are rising, in the US
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even as renewable energy begins to make a dent in the electricity
sector. And it’s not just greenhouse gases — every additional car
brings more local air and water pollution, noise pollution, collisions
and fatalities, and increased infrastructure costs.

What’s more, in a world that is rapidly urbanizing
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expected to continue doing so, cars present a simple problem of
geometry. The space required to accommodate citizens traveling in
private vehicles, in parking and roads, leaves less and less for other
uses of the city. And building more roads just leads to more drivers
and more congestion, a phenomenon known as “induced demand
[[link removed]].”

[A busy Manhattan street sees cars and pedestrians jostling. Taken
February 27, 2019 in New York City.]

A busy Manhattan street sees cars and pedestrians
jostling.   Spencer Platt/Getty Images

[In an effort to ease traffic, New York City’s governor and mayor
have announced a plan for congestion pricing for all vehicles
traveling into Manhattan south of 61st Street. Taken February 27,
2019, in New York City.]

In an effort to ease traffic, New York City’s governor and mayor
have announced a plan for congestion pricing for all vehicles
traveling into Manhattan south of 61st Street.  Spencer Platt/Getty
Images 

(Privately owned electric vehicles solve only a subset of these
problems. They still pollute — particulates from tires grinding on
streets are a major source of air pollution — and they still,
crucially, take up space.)

In cities built to make driving necessary, i.e., most major cities
these days, many citizens begin thinking of themselves primarily as
drivers. They advocate for, and defend, the prerogatives of drivers.
They accept the malign health effects that come with auto-dominated
living, everything from respiratory diseases to obesity to heart
disease, as a matter of course, because they have few alternatives.
Often they can only see measures to reduce private vehicle travel as a
threat, a loss.

That’s why it is, always and everywhere, difficult to push cars out
of spaces they have already colonized. It is always a fight.

But cities are trying, with varying means and varying ambition.

Often, that takes the form of banning vehicles from busy city centers,
either temporarily or permanently. Oslo, Norway, has
effectively banned cars from its center
[[link removed]].
Last year, Spain’s capital, Madrid, announced plans to do much the
same, banning non-resident automobiles
[[link removed]] in
its core. Pontevedra, Spain, has entirely banned cars from its center
[[link removed]] and
substantially reduced them outside it (and has subsequently seen its
shrinking economy revitalized).

London recently announced plans to make half the streets in its city
center permanently car-free
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Paris has banned cars from its center on the first Sund
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of each month
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Other cities are taking on cars with more comprehensive plans.
Hamburg, Germany, has a plan to turn 40 percent of its land area
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to connected, car-free green spaces. Montreal, Quebec, is building a
whole network of car-free streets
[[link removed]].
Helsinki, Finland, has a plan to densify its suburbs and connect them
with public transit
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Denmark is building cycling superhighways
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plans to ban the sale of gasoline and diesel cars entirely
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2030 forward.

Bogota, Colombia, has more than 200 miles of bike network
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every Sunday morning and afternoon, it closes city streets to cars
for Ciclovía
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[Joggers, cyclists, and skateboarders enjoy the streets of Bogota,
Colombia, during Ciclovía, a weekly event when cars are blocked off
for recreation.]

Joggers, cyclists, and skateboarders enjoy the streets of Bogota,
Colombia, during Ciclovía, a weekly event when cars are blocked off
for recreation.   Alfredo Sosa/The Christian Science Monitor via
Getty Images

Even in the US, the tide is beginning to turn in some cities, though
more slowly than in Europe. New York City has pushed cars out of
Central Park
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has an annual car-free Earth Day
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In March, it announced a plan for congestion pricing in lower
Manhattan
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starting in 2021. A revitalizing Detroit has a new plan
to aggressively build out multimodal transportation
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Denver is pushing walkability and public parks
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My home city of Seattle is busy building out a massive light rail
expansion
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But there may be no city in the world that has suffered more from
cars, or has bigger plans to reduce their presence, than the capital
of Catalonia.

Barcelona is jammed with cars and suffers their attendant ills

Like many growing global cities, Barcelona has become a victim of its
own success.

The city proper has a population of around 1.6 million, which hasn’t
grown substantially in the past decade because it is already extremely
dense. (At 16,000 people per square kilometer, it is the fourth most
population-dense city in Europe; its densest neighborhood boasts
53,000 people per square kilometer, greater than Manila, the world’s
densest city.)

But auto ownership rates and auto density have increased, even as the
metropolitan region around Barcelona has grown, up to around 5.5
million people from around 4.3 million in 2000. More commuters are
coming into the city, jostling with the locals.

The surge of cars is overwhelming even the capacity built up over
decades of auto-centric development. And while that’s a familiar
story in cities across the world, it is worse for Barcelona than most.

Even relative to other dense cities, Barcelona has few green or
permeable surfaces. Residents have access to just 2.7 square meters of
green space per resident, well under the World Health Organization’s
recommendation of 9 square meters.

[If you squint you can see the Poblenou neighborhood, where Salvador
Rueda has designed a superblock. Taken October 15th, 2018. Barcelona,
Catalonia, Spain.]

If you squint, you can see the Poblenou neighborhood, where Salvador
Rueda has designed a superblock.   Maysun for Vox

As a result, the city experiences a particularly severe urban heat
island effect. Filled with heat-producing cars and heat-absorbing
concrete and pavement, cities often grow substantially warmer than
surrounding rural areas. Barcelona is typically about 3 degrees
Celsius warmer than the region around it, as much as 7 or 8°C
depending on the season. The extra heat takes a heavy toll
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vulnerable populations, especially children and the elderly.

The combination of concrete, scarce green space, and lots of cars
means noise. By some estimates, Barcelona is the noisiest city in
Europe and one of the noisiest in the world
[[link removed]]. Though noise
gets less attention than air pollution, Rueda says its health impacts,
in hearing loss, stress, and heart conditions, are almost equal.

Today, 44 percent of Barcelona residents are exposed to
higher-than-recommended air pollution levels, and 46 percent
higher-than-recommended noise levels.

A 2017 study
[[link removed]] from
the Barcelona Institute for Global Health
[[link removed]] attempted to tally up the total cost in
lives of all these factors. It compared the city’s performance
against international standards (from the World Health Organization
and elsewhere) on “physical activity, air pollution, noise, heat,
and access to green spaces.” It concluded that the cumulative impact
of Barcelona’s failure to meet those standards was roughly 3,000
cases of premature mortality a year.

And a new study
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published in September by Rueda and several colleagues, found that if
the city implements Rueda’s plan to build 503 superblocks, the city
could prevent 667 premature deaths every year.

Across the political spectrum, these effects are seen as an urgent
problem the city must confront. And in every case, confronting them
means confronting cars.

Barcelona is uniquely well-positioned to refocus on people, not cars

Though the city is exceptionally choked with traffic, there may be no
place in the world with a better chance to demonstrate that a post-car
city — a city where auto traffic has been tamed and rerouted,
leaving most of the streets for people — is both imaginable and
achievable.

To begin with, Barcelona has a continual, centuries-long history of
urban rebirth and transformation
[[link removed]],
often at the hands of iconoclastic urban visionaries like Rueda.
Independence and a taste for radicalism have deep roots in the city.

It also has an advantage many newer cities lack: infrastructure built
before the era of the automobile. Some areas have narrow, winding
streets; others feature short, regular blocks friendly to pedestrians
and cyclists. Its density can readily be made to serve walkability.

[In the Gracia neighborhood superblock, all pavement is on the same
level and cars must go at pedestrian speed. Taken October 14th, 2018.
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.]

In the Gracia neighborhood superblock in Barcelona, all pavement is on
the same level and cars must go at pedestrian speed. Maysun for Vox

Although politics in the region remain tumultuous — the question of
Catalan independence bedevils every election — there is consensus
across political lines that air pollution and greenhouse gases must be
addressed, and it must involve reducing the prevalence of cars. The
city in June re-elected
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progressive mayor, Ada Colau, whose administration is dedicated to
public space and vigorously pushing forward the city’s urban plan.

And what a plan
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The changes it has already wrought have drawn international acclaim.
In December 2018, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology
chose Barcelona as the European Capital of Urban Mobility
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to a large consortium of cities exploring urban innovation, an honor
that will come with billions of euros in investment and the aid of
dozens of strategic partners.

And the changes so far are just the beginning. That superblock around
the Sant Antoni market? The first phase reclaimed 5,000 square meters
from cars. This year, the second phase of that project is expected to
reclaim another 21,000
[[link removed]].

Sant Antoni is technically Barcelona’s fifth superblock, but the
plan envisions something far beyond that: a city carpeted in
superblocks (_superilles_ in Catalan), some 500 of them, with almost
70 percent of its streets eventually devoted to mixed use.

Seventy percent. That would mean a shift in the urban fabric as
significant as the arrival of cars in the first place. It would
restore the many other uses of city streets, from recreation to
socializing to organizing, to parity with private vehicle use.

And it has Rueda’s fingerprints all over it. He’s been dreaming of
a post-car city for three decades, putting pieces in place. Now he
watches nervously as the plan takes its first few steps.

[Silvia, Nora, and Patrick, neighbors and friends, chat in the
Poblenou superblock. Taken October 15th, 2018. Barcelona, Catalonia,
Spain.]

Silvia, Nora, and Patrick, neighbors and friends, chat in the Poblenou
superblock in October.  Maysun for Vox

When our long ramble is over, Rueda and I duck into a cab. The
ubiquitous low buzz of Barcelona street life is temporarily muffled,
and Rueda, in the sudden silence, grows reflective.

“I am a public professional. If I worked in a private job, perhaps I
could be rich,” he says with a rueful smile. “But my richness,
above all, is to see this.” He gestures to the papers in his lap,
spilling into the seat beside him, full of plans, maps, and charts
describing how finally to build, after a half-century of cities for
cars, a city for people.

*
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