Double and third row parking has imposed its law in Barcelona to the satisfaction of delivery companies and Internet sales giants. The authority, far from remedying it, has been looking the other way for years. They have given up on the road indiscipline that has privatized part of the city without receiving hardly anything in return.
Original sin is twofold. On the one hand, the problem has been allowed to grow so that blatant non-compliance has become normalized. Commercial circulation in the Catalan capital has gone wild and the only current rule is that of the street is mine. Instead of regulating a phenomenon that causes so much damage in terms of pollution and time, the opposite has been done.
The clearest example of this nonsense has been the elimination of numerous chamfers that allowed loading and unloading. This crazy idea has opened the door for thousands of vans to use the city without scruples to the point that the forklift is on the verge of extinction. And they are not very necessary because impunity allows them to park in front of the door of every citizen who buys on the Internet.
The City Council, instead of imposing itself as has been done in illegal tourist apartments or in other matters, has decided to hand over circulatory control to the private market. The latest municipal action of eliminating a traffic lane on Muntaner and Aribau streets to give it away to loading and unloading activity is the clearest demonstration of a public defeat.
It is presented as a good measure to regulate an illegal practice that had no punishment. They think that if de facto they already occupied a lane, nothing happens if we give it to them exclusively. But this measure will only make sense if it is accompanied by the end of official and police permissiveness. Because if impunity continues, what will be next? Give them a second lane? Give them the keys to the city like the Three Wise Men?
Public space has been handed over to e-commerce. And don’t tell me that the so-called Amazon tax was approved because this tax should not be a bull to use the city as they please and confront us shouting: “The street is mine because I pay.” For this reason, the Urban Guard should reappear and sanction those who persist in the bad practice of stopping wherever they want without any qualms and disregarding the harm they cause to the rest of the citizens and to the public transport itself (buses or taxis) that has reduced its speed. average because a few profit from the illicit use of the city.
It is curious that this broad scope does not apply to other economic activities that are relentlessly monitored for occupying public roads. It is clear that there are different standards depending on the size of the taxpayer, even though we had believed that we are all equal before the administration.
