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Traffic-calmed street in Barcelona: More space for cyclists and pedestrians, no passage for cars
Photo: Gunnar Knechtel / DER SPIEGEL
The idea is as simple as it is ingenious: In the grid-like new city of Barcelona, two by two or three by three blocks of houses are combined into so-called superilles, or "super islands".
The car traffic has to go outside, only residents and delivery vans are allowed in at certain times - and even then they are only allowed to drive up to ten km / h.
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Cyclists and pedestrians have priority, the former intersections become squares.
The first super island was completed in 2017, but in the comparatively low-traffic Poblenou district, and the area around the Sant Antoni market has also been a traffic-calmed island since last October.
Now Barcelona wants to expand the model to a much larger area and thus cover large parts of the city center.
21 streets in the new city known as Eixample, a city expansion from the 19th century, are now to become a super super island, said the city council of Barcelona.
According to the city, every third street should be greener and every resident should live no more than 200 meters from one of the 21 newly created squares or a green street.
In addition, pedestrians should be given significantly more space - 33.4 hectares to be precise.
In addition, 6.6 hectares of green are to be created through planting.
According to the city, the work will begin in 2022, the costs are 36 million euros.
With the growth of the individual super-islands to mega-islands, Barcelona could solve two problems.
On the one hand that of the poor air quality, because pollutant limit values for nitrogen oxides and fine dust are regularly exceeded in Barcelona too.
At the same time, according to research by SPIEGEL, each resident of the city has an average of just 6.6 square meters of green space, in the city center it is only 1.85.
The World Health Organization, on the other hand, recommends at least nine square meters per head.
The renovation measures offer residents a better quality of life, but restrictions on car traffic are controversial.
Xavi Matilla, chief architect of the Barcelona city council, admitted to SPIEGEL in October that there were initially many doubts, "especially from shopkeepers and residents" about the super islands.
However, these had dispersed, meanwhile many wanted to live in one of the Superilles, Matilla explained at the time.
A data analysis by SPIEGEL also showed that traffic in the islands has decreased significantly.
Although part of the traffic was shifted to parallel streets, the traffic did not collapse due to the super-islands and the overall impact was minor.
At the same time, car traffic should not be excluded overnight.
First, the Carrer del Consell de Cent running right through the area and three intersecting streets are to be rebuilt.
In addition, four intersections are to be converted into squares.
How exactly the respective streets and squares will look in the future is to be determined in an ideas competition.
According to the news portal Bloomberg, however, there are guidelines.
At least 80 percent of the road should be in the shade of trees in summer and at least 20 percent of the surface should be permeable to water so that rainwater can be better absorbed.
The super-islands will then gradually spread across the entire district until all 21 streets have been rebuilt by 2030.
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