The neighbors who live on Gran Via in front of the Glòries shopping center saw the cars disappear overnight almost two years ago. With the entry into service of the Glòries tunnel, they gained an immense public space that until then was the sole and exclusive property of the car. The then deputy mayor Janet Sanz opted to also apply the tactical urban planning that she had already deployed in other parts of the city and colorful paint, supports for giant pots and concrete blocks replaced the lines that delimited the eight car lanes. Later came a giant zipline, calisthenics areas and ping-pong tables.
Once the new public use of this space has been consolidated, the socialists are ready to abandon provisionality and give it a definitive shape to the area, replacing the provisional tactical urban planning with a central promenade 21 meters wide in the stretch of Gran Via between Badajoz and Bilbao. 400 new trees – when the restrictions due to the drought allow them to be planted – will shade the children’s play areas and the benches and make the summer stay bearable. The elements of calisthenics, the most frequented and used on the site right now, will also be kept. “From a temporary urbanization we are moving to a structural urbanization that will give much more quality”, assures the current deputy mayor of Urbanism, Laia Bonet.
On Monday, work will begin on the first phase of development in the section that is just above the tunnel through which the cars go underground and do not appear until the other side of the square. Precisely one of the objectives of the action is to give continuity to the work with the Glòries park.
The works of the first phase, which affects around 27,000 m2, will last for a year and will involve an investment of 11.41 million euros. The final result gives shape to the winning proposal of the public competition, which is the work of the temporary union of companies formed by Esteyco, Trn Taryet and the JPAM architecture studio. The main element is the central promenade, which will occupy almost half of the 50 meter wide avenue. In addition, the sidewalk next to the residential buildings will also grow from the current five meters to 7.35 meters.
For vehicles, there will be a traffic lane on both sides of the promenade designed to be shared both by the cars and motorbikes of the neighbors as well as by services and bicycles and scooters. At the intersections with the transversal streets and with the accesses to the shopping center, following the philosophy of the green axes of the Eixample, larger spaces with various uses will be created. The largest will be at the intersection with Carrer Escultors Claperós, where possible temporary events will take place, such as neighborhood fairs and parties.
When the mountain side is finished, it will be time to face the second phase, the sea side of the avenue, where an important public transport work will be carried out: the splitting of the tram tracks, which in that section circulate on the single track . This is an improvement of the fundamental infrastructure for the future connection of Trambaix and Trambesòs via Diagonal. It is planned that the works will begin when the first phase ends, at the beginning of next year, and will end in the spring of 2026. If the deadlines are met, the split will be a reality long before the installation of the roads between Verdaguer and Francesc Macià, an action with which the Collboni government says it is committed, but, for the moment, it does not take any steps to prove it.