What if the city of the future turned highways into urban promenades?

Transformation project of the road junction between the B-20, C-31 and NII roads, in Montgat (Barcelona).

Can the highways that surround the cities be converted into pleasant urban walks?

An exhibition in Barcelona imagines so and shows plans to convert highways, bridges or road junctions that link cities in the Barcelona metropolitan area into avenues or squares and interchanges.

Metropolitan avenues or public spaces that provide the backbone for public transport and allow people to get between municipalities on foot or by bicycle.

, is the title of the exhibition.

Also from the city to open spaces.

The concept appears in the future Metropolitan Urban Master Plan for Barcelona, ​​the urban regulations of the Catalan capital and the 35 surrounding municipalities that will replace the current ones, from 1976 (the General Metropolitan Plan, PGM).

Avenues that have connected, but have also isolated municipalities, surrounding them with asphalt.

Examples to get the idea?

Well, wondering if it's normal that you can't leave Barcelona on foot, walking, neither along the Meridiana, nor the Diagonal nor the Gran Via, three of its great entrances.

The city ends and begins with a freeway with three, four or six lanes in each direction.

Or attend the transformation into an avenue, already underway, of the C-245 road between Sant Boi and Castelldefels, which will allow walking between these municipalities and having facilities and various uses within reach.

Transformation project of the access to Barcelona by the river Besòs.

“The surface of the motorways and road junctions adds up to as much space as twice the Eixample district”, Xavier Alarcón, curator of the exhibition, fires off.

Three million trips are made every day in the Barcelona area.

And he adds: "It's about recycling spaces that are now designed for cars but that have enormous potential in the future: transforming large infrastructures and highways into avenues and streets."

“Watch out”, points out the other commissioner, Helena Sanz: “the motorway network will continue to exist”.

But not part of the asphalt intended for cars in a future where mobility will have no choice but to be more sustainable: for reasons of health, fuel costs, taxation of private vehicles.

It continues to be what many cities in the world are doing, pacifying large arteries,

But is it feasible to convert the Trinitat junction in Barcelona or the jumble of highways that surround the Baricentro, in the Vallès, into something on a human scale, where you can walk, ride a bike or catch a fast bus?

It won't be tomorrow, nor in the next decade, respond the urban planners, ecologists, engineers, architects or mobility experts who have been working in the PDU for years.

They defend breaking with the idea of ​​“what do I do if I can't go by car”.

Or turn it around: "Contemplate that physical conditions are not an impediment."

"It would be unforgivable not to have a plan," says Javier Ortigosa, a mobility expert on the PDU drafting team.

Project to convert the Quatre Camins road junction, where three roads meet, into a new metropolitan center.

Ortigosa recalls that the rounds of Barcelona were drawn in 1966, included in the PGM in 1976 and did not materialize until the 80s of the last century.

Now the horizon of the metropolitan avenues is in 2050 years, three decades.

He is ambitious.

And if it is feasible, it is contemplated.

"The city centers have improved, but the interurban peripheries have worsened," reflects Ortigosa.

“Now we have the imaginary of the public space of stay against mobility by car”.

It is about “catalyzing it”, she defends.

Helena Sanz recalls that “the current road infrastructures were very expensive, it is not a question of giving them up, because they have a well-proven potential connector and that has made the territory competitive.

Now it's about recycling.

Make reservations so that high-efficiency public transport can be implemented on these roads (taking out cars is not only good for the flow of private traffic, but also for public traffic), bike lanes or walking.

"That you can walk between municipalities."

Isabel Torné, urban planning expert architect of the PDU writing team, adds that between municipalities there are many “recyclable urban voids”.

Not necessarily creating urban facades, building on both sides, connections between green areas can also be improved.

This is how the PDU imagines the road junction of the Baricentro shopping center, where two highways and a road meet.

The exhibition shows a city “imagined where roads, highways and highways have been transformed into accessible, sustainable and integrated public spaces: both in the city and in nature”.

There could be, for example, a Gran Via that connects the coastline between the Besòs and Llobregat rivers with access to the beaches on foot, by bike or by bus.

Or the idea of ​​the avenue that from Paral.lel in Barcelona extends to the N-340 and the Penedès, through the Ordal.

The exhibition will be open in the Mercè Sala space (at the Diagonal metro stop) until January 10, 2023. Located in an interchange corridor, the exhibition allows two readings: a quick one, with large numbers and headlines;

and another rested, with details and a drawing of 23 meters.

The material in the exhibition is based on a contest (Knots and Crosses) and a technical debate on the role of road junctions and infrastructure in the future, centered on six locations for which proposals had to be made.

And for the biggest fans, you can take the exhibition home in the format of a paper diary.

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