The participants in the interactive electoral questionnaire of Public Affairs Experts for La Vanguardia, which since it was put into operation five weeks ago have answered more than 25,000 users, points out a more than notable disagreement with the unilateral imposition of measures against the use of private vehicles in Barcelona, ​​especially if they are not accompanied by an improvement in the public transport offer to access and move around the city.
This week, based on the answers registered in the questionnaire, the opinion of the people of Barcelona on transport infrastructures and urban mobility is evaluated through the identification of the users of the La Vanguardia website with the opinions expressed by the main candidates for mayor of Barcelona in the elections on May 28. Specifically, the state of opinion regarding three issues is analyzed. the state of traffic, the new mobility and the extension of the international airport of El Prat.
From the survey it can be deduced that slightly more than a third of Barcelonans (35.19%) consider that “the effort to reduce pollution and, therefore, traffic, must be done well, accompanied by a gradual improvement in the field of public transport. Likewise, 24.31% identify with the statement that “mobility must once again be at the service of citizens and the municipal government has decided to wage war on private mobility, ignoring that in many cases it is compulsory mobility â€. The districts whose residents share this opinion to a greater extent are those with the highest income in the city, Sarrià -Sant Gervasi and Les Corts.
Among the residents of Ciutat Vella, a district in which private mobility is already very limited, there is a division of opinion. 30.85% of the participants in the La Vanguardia interactive who live in this district of Barcelona agree with a “green revolution” that implies reducing traffic in the Eixample and that aspires to make Ciutat Vella “free of cars â€. It is a slightly lower percentage (31.71%) than the readers in this district who identify with the statement that the fight against air pollution must be accompanied by an improvement in public transport, an opinion shared by 35.88 % of the inhabitants of the Eixample, probably the district where the urban measures adopted by the municipal government have the greatest impact.
The mobility of the future, which will largely depend on the extension of the use of electric vehicles, is also a matter of analysis based on the responses to this block of the interactive prepared by Public Affairs Experts. 23.74% of users share the opinion that if the majority of citizens do not buy an electric car and continue using the most polluting private vehicles, it is due to lack of money and because they do not have a better alternative in public transport. This statement reaches its highest percentages of adherence in Horta-Guinardó, Les Corts and Nou Barris. 17.66% believe that trying to transform urban mobility without addressing socioeconomic biases is a “classist” attitude and, among the statements that find the greatest support among residents of Sarrià -Sant Gervasi, the one that “Colau has turned Barcelona into a Bolivarian theme park and does everything he can think of for propaganda purposes.â€
The questionnaire opened by La Vanguardia also touches on an issue that has generated enormous controversy and that remains unresolved: the expansion of the Barcelona airport. One in three respondents consider that it is possible to “be in favor of sustainability and make it compatible with economic growth” and that, therefore, the El Prat expansion project must go in the direction of making Barcelona “a most connected cityâ€.
On the other hand, a high percentage of users (29.32%) supports the statement that the purpose of the expansion should not be to attract more tourists to the city but to generate better economic conditions. On the other hand, one in three inhabitants of Sarrià -Sant Gervasi (33.70%) identifies above all with the appreciation that a no to the expansion of the airport would mean closing a door “to progress, innovation and development.
