“We have gone from having a street in which there were no problems to a street of traffic jams, with the risk of accidents and horns honking every now and then.” It is the complaint of Helena, a resident of Barcelona and affected by a new traffic regulation on the corner of Aragó and Muntaner streets.
At this intersection, the City Council changed the traffic order about three months ago and installed a new traffic light system that distinguishes the bus lane, a turn lane and two lanes for going straight. “It was approved to segregate public transport, but that is not happening,” criticizes Helena in RAC1.
Before, cars could turn onto Aragó Street from the bus lane. Now there is a lane only for turning and a triple traffic light that causes “general confusion” among drivers. It is not that the new traffic light is poorly designed, but that it represents “an added difficulty” that the vehicles do not manage well: “There are many risk situations for road safety,” Helena warns.
In fact, there has already been at least one accident involving a neighbor who was stopped on his motorcycle at a traffic light and was hit by a car. “The City Council ignored it,” laments this neighbor.
The response that the neighbors have received is that the new traffic light is “a proposal of neighborhood consensus.” But Helena, who has lived in this place for 25 years, assures that “the crossing was not problematic” and that “they wanted to resolve something that did not need to be resolved.”
“In addition to the traffic light, they have added a lane in that section that disappears right after. It is nonsense in general,” he complains. “On paper it may make sense and logic, but then it must be verified whether it works in reality,” says the affected neighbor.
In addition to the increased risk of accidents, the main complaint from neighbors is the noise caused by traffic chaos. “Every three or four minutes someone honks the horn. We have noise from 6-7 in the morning until eight thirty in the afternoon. It’s horrible,” says Helena. “You can’t imagine how unbearable it is,” she insists.
“Almost every start is a festival of honking, anger and violations,” says the neighbor, who has made a Twitter thread with videos that demonstrate the chaotic situation in this corner of the Eixample. The neighbors have also opened a petition on Change.org to demand a rectification from the City Council.
According to municipal sources consulted by RAC1, this road planning of Muntaner Street “responds to the fact that there were a lot of right turns by private vehicles that hindered the circulation of buses and taxis that continue straight.” Now, they argue, “the bus does not lose as much time as it did before, when it encountered vehicles in its lane that passed very slowly, since they had to give way to pedestrians.”
The City Council explains that they had already planned to reinforce the signage to indicate where you can go from each lane and “improve the understanding of the lanes.”
This article was originally published on RAC1.