The changes carried out in mobility in Barcelona in recent years could have gone much further if the government of Ada Colau had not been in coalition with the PSC. That is at least the feeling that Albert Batlle, deputy mayor for Security during the last term, has. He himself defined himself yesterday in the CÃrculo Ecuestre as “a factor of moderation†within the municipal government and set himself up as a counterweight in some projects that the deputy mayor Janet Sanz wanted to promote from the Urban Planning area.
This constant scuffle between the commons and the socialists in terms of mobility has been a consequence of the organizational change promoted by the commons when they arrived at Plaça Sant Jaume in 2015. At that time they decided to separate the Department of Mobility from that of Security, which traditionally they had been together. Thus, it was sought that the portfolio responsible for public transport, the construction of bicycle lanes and other tasks related to mobility be directly linked to the urban area that is in charge of carrying out the works. In 2019, with the socialists ruling in coalition with the commons, this difference between the two spheres was further reinforced by leaving Mobility in the hands of the PSC under the command of Urbanism directed by the commons. The tactical urbanism promoted after the pandemic showed the totally different approaches between both government partners.
“I have had to cope with the effects of mobility,” acknowledged the political manager of the Urban Police during his participation in the debate on mobility that opened after the welcome by the vice president of the CÃrculo Ecuestre, Enrique Lacalle, and which included the presentation of the third vice-president of the institution, Ignacio Marull. Together with Batlle, he debated with the president of the RACC, Josep Mateu, and pointed out that in the next term it would be appropriate to recover the old organization chart so that decisions on mobility could be taken again taking police aspects more into account than urban ones. For the future, Batlle also asks “not to open more melons on mobility”, although he makes it clear that all the transformations that have been started must be finished. “You cannot go back on issues such as the tram works, the remedy would be worse than the disease,” considered Batlle, in favor of “reflecting and rectifying if there is anything that can be rectified, but without going back on anything.”
At his side, Josep Mateu, on the other hand, opted to “stop everything” and criticized the lack of programming in the works and in the actions of the City Council in recent years. “We all want safer and more sustainable mobility, but it is being done with a lack of planning and communication that collapses and wastes time in congestion to some 300,000 people every day,” said the president of the RACC. For Josep Mateu, “the private car is going to disappear from the city center in the next ten years but it must be done in an orderly manner and accompanying the people.”
In this sense, Mateu and Batlle agreed that the solution is to promote once and for all a metropolitan vision of mobility policies, with the construction of large car parks in origin (outside Barcelona) and more reliable public transport in the routes from the metropolitan region, “with a Rodalies service that is not ashamed as it is now,” concluded Batlle. The deputy mayor of Barcelona also charged against the Generalitat, considering that the greatest lack of planning in recent years has been the absence of a strategy for the end of tolls on Catalan motorways.
