The offer of great deals for the city’s key actions that Jaume Collboni has been doing since he has been mayor has its first fruit: the coverage of the Ronda de Dalt in Horta-Guinardó. The socialist councilor, who carried this project in his electoral program, has achieved the commitment of the municipal groups of the PSC, Trias per Barcelona, ??BComú, ERC and PP to promote it. Vox sources said that they have not been invited to the presentation of the agreement, held this Friday at the Saló de Cent, and that they support the neighbors who demand this work. However, two councilors from the far-right party attended the call. Representatives of the neighborhood associations of Sant Genís dels Agudells, Montbau and La Teixonera also participated. Vall d’Hebron has also expressed its support.
The reactivation of the coverage of this road, which supports the circulation of some 150,000 vehicles daily, is, for now, a declaration of good intentions, but, beyond the section that already has a drafted project, between the Vall d ‘Hebron and Vallcarca Avenue do not prefix calendars or budgets, issues that must be defined throughout this mandate.
To reactivate the intervention, the commission will be created for the pact of the transformation of the Ronda de Dalt and its surroundings, similar to the one that was made for the Plaza de las Glòries. In this body, future options for covering this fast track will be studied and evaluated and the actions implemented will be monitored. It will have the participation of municipal groups, neighborhood representatives, economic agents, entities with nearby infrastructure or equipment, City Council technicians and independent experts. It will be chaired by an opposition councilor and will have as vice-presidents the first deputy mayor, Laia Bonet, and the councilor of Horta-Guinardó, Lluis Rabell.
“The rounds were a great achievement before the Olympic Games for metropolitan mobility, but since then things have changed a lot and the city has a debt with the neighborhoods where it was not covered,” said Collboni, who detailed how in In 1992 there were areas of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi and Nou Barris in which this ring road was covered, but in Horta-Guinardó and Gràcia, it was not.
The mayor has valued the “permanent demand” of the residents for the round to be covered and advocated assuming it through “a city pact that exceeds municipal mandates” since it is a “medium and long-term action that It must add sufficient political strength” since “many investments and works will be needed for a long time.”
Although they are happy about this impulse, the neighbors are not having it all with them. “There is satisfaction that it is being resumed but at the same time a certain skepticism,” said Tony Mateu, from the Montbau neighborhood association, one of the people who has led this demand. “It is a 36-year struggle,” he emphasized, “with proposals and commitments that unfortunately have not been fulfilled.” This activist has disgraced the different municipal governments about the little that has been done so far, with a single section in Horta-Guinardó covered of about 200 meters in eight years for which about 20 million euros were dedicated. “At this rate,” he pointed out, “we would need a hundred years to cover it all.” The entities demand that we start from the proposal they made in 2015 and that was agreed with the government of the then mayor Xavier Trias, at the end of his mandate, but that was stuck.
The coverage of the round as it passes through Horta Guinardó has four phases. The first, between the market and the Vall d’Hebron institute, the one mentioned above, was completed at the beginning of 2020. Phase 2, up to Vallcarca avenue, which already has an executive project, is expected to initially be approved next month. who comes to immediately begin the bidding process for works. Phases 3 and 4, more complex, cover the coverage between Jordà avenue and Granja Vella, and between the latter street and Harmomia street. In this area, on the mountain side, is the Vall d’Hebron hospital, which will open its new outpatient and outpatient clinic building on the sea side. This expansion pushes to cover this area.
The proposal promoted by the residents of Horta-Guinardó was the most voted among those presented by citizens for inclusion in the Municipal Action Program (PAM) for the period 2016-2019. Since 2016, various preliminary projects were defined for the sections between Alfonso Comín and Karl Marx squares, which cover the districts of Gràcia, Horta-Guinardó and Nou Barris. The necessary investment was estimated between 333 and 390 million euros, depending on the solution adopted. But only the small stretch of Vall d’Hebron materialized.
