The PSOE of Madrid, with the former minister Reyes Maroto, as a candidate for the City Council of the capital, has presented this Friday its proposal to transform the urban planning of the capital. His first offer has been the reform of the main axis of the Paseo del Prado to Atocha passing through the Plaza de Cibeles. The objective is to make that area more pedestrian, thereby reducing the lanes of El Prado from ten to five, bringing the Cibeles fountain “closer” to the square and adding more trees.
Maroto’s objective is to promote a space that “does not measure up” to its recent appointment in the Paseo de la Luz as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Antonio Giraldo, architect and ‘number 9’ on the Maroto list, explained that in the PSOE proposal, “the five lanes attached to the CaixaForum would be removed and the other five would become two going up and three going down to respect the bus lanes.To do this, an international competition would have to be called and the best proposals studied.
The estimated cost would be around 34.5 million euros, since work is being done with what already exists and “major infrastructure works” are not needed, the architect pointed out.
This project, called ‘Axis 0’ would be the first of the 16 that make up the plan. The rest, called “healthy spaces”, will be presented throughout the race until May 28.
The southern districts of the M-30 Carabanchel, Usera, Villaverde, Vicálvaro, Puente and Villa de Vallecas and Latina concentrate nine of the sixteen spaces; while Barajas, Tetuán, Hortaleza and Fuencarral-El Pardo will house the rest.
“They are spaces that we want to be channels and flow of life in society. We want a complex structure that interconnects neighborhoods and districts with their green areas and recreational areas,” insisted Giraldo, who stressed that the bulk of them are outside the M-30 because the almond has concentrated the majority investment of the last 30 years.
Reyes Maroto has insisted that the objective is to “rebalance Madrid” and rethink the city towards a more sustainable, close and inclusive model. If she wins the baton of command after May 28, the socialist would change the use of public space to reduce space for private vehicles and would outline a “polycentric” city.
“Madrid dedicates 80% of public space to private vehicles, although they represent only 30% of journeys. It is an unsustainable distribution. Redistribution and promotion of sustainable mobility are essential”, stressed Maroto.
As an example of successful models, he has cited cities such as Berlin, Brussels or Vienna, which have socialist mayors and are moving in that direction. Where she has stopped is in Paris, a city to which she traveled a month ago to meet the councilor, Anne Hidalgo, in search of models that can be transferred to Madrid.
In fact, Carlos Moreno, Hidalgo’s adviser, professor at the Panteón-Sorbona University and who has popularized the concept of the ‘City of fifteen minutes’, has taken the floor online. He has marked the need to change the urban model of the last 70 decades based on “urban and economic segregation”.
“Time has become a raw material for getting around, wasting our lives. Useful time has been sacrificed along with ecology,” insisted Moreno, who has asked all the forces that are committed to sustainability in the capital to “build a governance” along these lines. Más Madrid has also made this concept one of its electoral banners.
