The users of metro line 4 add to the sweltering heat these days the discomfort caused by transfers, alternative buses and all the paraphernalia usually associated with service interruptions due to works. This summer has hit the yellow line, the same one that at this time usually smells like sunscreen, although yesterday morning most of those affected were people who were backpacking on their way to work and the beach it remained for them in the memory of the weekend or on the horizon of a still distant holiday.
Until the end of August, the classic waves of tourists who disembark at Barceloneta station are replaced by the machinery that completely renovates three kilometers of the infrastructure between Verdaguer and Bogatell, where almost three out of every four incidents suffered by the L4. From August 1 to 25, the impact will be reduced from six stations to four and Ciutadella and Barceloneta will be restored to the joy of those who go to the beach by public transport.
The bulk of the passengers, more than at the intermediate stations, are concentrated at the two ends of the cut, especially at Verdaguer, where they are forced to get off the trains and an army of informers diverts them towards the best alternative. The shuttle buses that run along the affected route in both directions are the most eye-catching on the street. In the early hours there were some queues that didn’t go any further during the rest of the day, with half-empty vehicles in the middle of the morning, in which the passengers acknowledged that they opted for this alternative rather out of inertia.
Longer journeys are much cheaper if you take the metro, taking the other lines, even if this lengthens the journey time. To absorb this greater volume of passengers, Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) has strengthened lines 1, 2 and 5.
“Wasn’t there any other better time to do it?” asked some young women who have already finished their exams and are on their way to the beach. The thing is, no. If you look at the L4 passenger statistics, no matter how much the parasols take up a lot and the smell of sunscreen is intense, the months of July and August are the ones with the least demand of the whole year. The many tourists do not even come close to the large amount of travel that the locals stop doing when they go on holiday.
The most common thing in cuts of this magnitude is for a representative of the City Council or TMB to appear, but yesterday both the newly arrived municipal government and the public company chose to remain silent.
In addition to the metro cut, there is also the T4 line of the tramway, which runs along Diagonal from Glòries to Besòs, until August 31. In this case, an alternative bus partially covers the effects resulting from the tramway extension works to Verdaguer, which will also entail the relocation of the stop in the square.
