The dramatic reform of the Sant Antoni ring road will remain in the hands of those who win the next municipal elections. Yes, dramatic, because the remodeling of this road has already opened a deep wound among many residents, because the discrepancies in this regard between commoners and socialists within the government will make it extremely difficult for their pact to ever be reissued, because we are truly witnessing the confrontation of two ways of understanding public space… And the last twist in this story does nothing but feed this tension.
The government commission of the City Council approved this Thursday the project of this transformation. In the end, as planned, the buses will go down only from Villarroel to Urgell. Most of the space will be free of vehicles. BComú voted in favor and PSC against. The deputy mayor for Urbanism, the common Janet Sanz, said that the final document includes most of the neighborhood concerns, which is the result of a deep process of participation. The councilor for Mobility, the socialist Laia Bonet, said that they are opposed because this initiative does not have the consensus of the majority of residents and merchants. In any case, the adjudication of the works will take place in July, and its start after the summer. So the new city government will have the last word. In the end the calendar was thrown over.
The truth is that the neighborhood agreement became a chimera. The common ones can be blamed for a certain neglect during the last five years. The degradation of this section after the dismantling of the temporary tent of the Sant Antoni market is also the result of its abandonment – ??the City Council already had a project in 2018. But fostering a consensus between those who seek oxygen and are committed to perpetuating total pacification and those who want the buses to return, who see this open space as a source of coexistence problems, was a very complicated undertaking. On one side we have a lot of people from the Raval and some entities from Sant Antoni, and on the other, mainly residents and merchants from the Eixample.
Perhaps it was those from Ciutat Vella who took the plunge, but none of them trust what could happen after the elections. And those on the other side watch over their weapons, study how to turn the tables, await the moment to put their demands on the table again.
