There are city projects that give rise to great controversies. Some have been fundamental to the mayors so far and are threatened by the changes at the head of the councils that will take place on Saturday. The Barcelona tram connection via Diagonal is the most well-known case. Ada Colau has defended it in every way during the two mandates in which she has governed. After many studies and a strong political battle, he managed to start building the first phase, which he is executing in agreement with the Generalitat. But if Xavier Trias gets the baton – he is the one who has the most possibilities -, the second phase could be paralyzed, since the Junts candidate has said both actively and passively that he will not complete the connection between Verdaguer and Francesc Macià , despite that it will be necessary to see how the political agreements he would need to govern come into play, given that he only has 11 of the 41 councillors. There are other examples of projects affected in Girona, Tarragona, Lleida, Sant Cugat del Vallès and Badalona, ​​which are explained on these pages.
Returning to the Barcelona tramway, the works to extend the Trambesòs from Les Glòries to Verdaguer are progressing at full speed. This same week, experts in the field from different parts of the world who attended the public transport summit held in the Catalan capital visited the works to take note of the urban integration that is being done. The forecast is that the works will be finished at the beginning of next year so that the section will enter service in March. The drafting of the project for the second and last phase, from Verdaguer to Francesc Macià , which would enable integration with Trambaix, is already underway. The idea of ​​the outgoing municipal government was to be able to start the works as soon as those currently in progress were finished. But Trias said not to talk about it. His opposition to this project is known and, should he become mayor again, he will have no choice but to accept the phase that is being executed, but he can leave the pending section up in the air, which is what really gives him sense. It is the circumstance that Damià Calvet, number five on his electoral list, signed off on the works that are being undertaken when he was Councilor of Territory. And he has always been in favor of completing the project, an issue on which he has avoided speaking since he became part of Junts’ candidacy for City Council.
What does Trias propose for the section of Diagonal that would be without a tram? Reform the avenue following the model applied between Francesc Macià and the Cinc d’Oros, which was what he promoted when he was mayor and which he inaugurated in March 2015, shortly before the elections that he lost and opened the stage of Colau. The mayor of Junts always argues that his predecessor in office, the socialist Jordi Hereu, held a public consultation in 2010 on the transformation of the avenue in which they proposed two options with a tram and a third, which was the most voted, which defended not executing any. This result, which he interprets as a no to the tram, is based on not implementing this transport system.
The other candidate who still has options to govern, the socialist Jaume Collboni, at the beginning of the campaign was in favor of stopping the works for one term to let the residents of the Eixample rest after so many months of work cuts, but later he rectified and committed to maintaining the planned plan, endorsed by the metropolitan mayors who also defend the connection of Trambaix and Trambesòs.
While the tram is a matter that comes from afar, the green areas of the Eixample have been the stellar urban planning performance of Colau’s last mandate. Its creation as an evolution of the super-blocks has had supporters and detractors who have also raised their voices in the municipal council. In the last sessions of the mandate, the group of the mayoress, BComú, remained defending them alone. The rest, with more or less intensity, have rejected them, even the PSC, a partner in the government, which announced, in the event that its candidate, Collboni, is mayor, a shutdown to evaluate them and see how and when more will be made.
Colau planned to convert one out of every three streets in the district for pedestrians, as was done during the first phase with Consell de Cent, Comte Borrell, Bruc and Girona. But Collboni already said that he would not go down this path and, instead, would bet on recovering 30 island interiors.
Junts has also been very critical of this performance in recent years. During the election campaign, Trias promised to do an audit of the super-islands and the green axes in his first year of government if he gets the mayorship. In his opinion, in addition to perverting the spirit with which Ildefons Cerdà designed the Eixample, they cause problems. His intention is to paralyze the projects that are planned immediately “to rethink them rigorously, with dialogue and always seek the maximum possible agreement”. The objective of the evaluations is to detect the degree of pollution, cleanliness, safety, commercial activity, mobility or housing price evolution attributable to these urban planning actions. What does not work will be tried to be corrected and could even be reversed, although he admitted that he will not back down on major works, such as Consell de Cent, out of respect for the residents.
Another conversion into a pedestrian zone currently in the air is the Ronda de Sant Antoni. After months of negotiations between the residents, especially in the Raval, supporters of total pacification, and those mainly in Sant Antoni who prefer the bus to return, the municipal government put on the table an intermediate solution that satisfied those in Ciutat more old woman However, delays can frustrate the initiative. If it considers it so, the new municipal government will be able to stop the project easily. It will be enough not to award the works.
