Public transport in Barcelona has not only recovered pre-pandemic levels, but is surpassing them. Users of the central sections of lines 1 and 5 go like sardines during rush hour. The same goes for the buses that travel the Gran Via. There are times when the situation is suffocating and the heat at this time of the year only exacerbates a feeling that is confirmed by the data: for the first time the metro has exceeded one and a half million validations in a single day. At Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB), they take it for granted that it will be an absolute record year for the use of public transport.
Sources from the company – which between metro and bus account for 60% of trips in the integrated fare system in the Barcelona region – attribute the increase in passengers to the reduction in fares, which allow Barcelona residents to make all the trips they want in public transport for 20 euros per month with the T-Usual at 50%. They also attribute it to the recovery of face-to-face work to the detriment of teleworking once the pandemic has been considered over and to the increase in mobility for leisure, and they cite as an example that the record number of passengers on a public holiday was reached on St. George’s Day, which was a Sunday this year, with 1.2 million validations.
Faced with this panorama, the question arises: where is the limit? How far can public transport grow in the Catalan capital? The Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATM) rules out making an approach and passes the ball to the operators. In turn, neither these nor the experts in the sector dare to predict a maximum capacity figure. And it cannot be a closed fixed number. It depends on variable factors such as peak hour demand. What is clear to them is that with the existing infrastructure there is not much room for manoeuvre. For this reason, the only short-term solution is to flatten the rush hour by making the entry times for workplaces more flexible. It is a question that was put on the table during the pandemic, when masks were mandatory and it was a question of guaranteeing interpersonal distance both yes and no.
At that time, the then councilor for Mobility, Rosa Alarcón, even started a pact with employers, unions and social agents so that they would all do their part and it would be easier to allow not everyone to enter the office between eight and nine in the morning The words did not become deeds and the whole thing was left in a fire of shavings, like teleworking in many workplaces.
Faced with this difficulty of social change, only the completion of works in progress and the impetus for new projects can help to give air to the full wagons at rush hour. The best example of this is the L9 of the metro. When the central section is completed and operating at full capacity, forecasts indicate that it will become the most used line in the Catalan capital, with 117 million validations per year. It will then free up many passengers on lines 1 and 5, and will replicate the role played by the Dalt roundabout 30 years ago in terms of car traffic, when many drivers went from crossing Barcelona through the center to crossing it through the belt bypass
The new mayor, Jaume Collboni, promised during the campaign his commitment to expand the metro in the city itself and on a metropolitan scale. Among the priorities is the extension of the L1 from Santa Coloma to Badalona, ??with two new stops; the L3 from Zona Universitària to Esplugues, with two more stops, and the L4 from La Pau to the future La Sagrera station, with three new metro stations.
All of this will be a reality if the Government complies with the commitment that the Republicans reached with the Socialists so that Pere Aragonès could approve the budgets, since the metro extension works are the responsibility of the Generalitat.
It seems that it is quite clear for the Ministry of Territory that there is money for the extension of the Llobregat de Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC) line from Plaça Espanya to Gràcia to allow the interchange with the Vallès line and create two new stops (Hospital Clínic and Francesc Macià). The works will begin this summer and will not be ready until the end of the decade. When it becomes a reality, FGC aspires to double the number of passengers that will move the L8, converted into a true metro line in the image and likeness of the improvements introduced to the Vallès line with the addition of the new trains.
It was precisely the Sant Cugat line that was one of the biggest examples of agglomeration in recent years, with occupancy levels that far exceeded 100% at peak hours. The situation has improved considerably with the introduction of the 15 new trains and the reformulation of the timetables to offer frequencies every two and a half minutes between Sant Cugat and Plaça Catalunya. Since then, in December of last year, the maximum capacity of the line has gone from 80 million trips per year to 110. However, the FGC knows that it is a temporary respite. They have reached the maximum capacity of the line, there is no more room for improvement, and the upward trend in passenger numbers makes them think of the need for a second tunnel through Collserola that the then president of the company, Ricard Font, left already embodied in the strategic plan for the coming years. This action would make it possible to gain 150 million annual trips from 2030, more than double the current capacity.
For its part, Rodalies aspires to go from the 400,000 daily users on average it currently has to 600,000 with the set of improvements included in the Rodalies 2020-2030 plan, directed by Pere Macías. A third of the investment planned for the first five-year period has already been awarded and the rate of investment that the Ministry of Transport is achieving has not been seen for more than ten years. One of the most symbolic works of this plan is called to be the splitting of the Vic line, the R3, still a single track. Other actions that are also very showy, such as the burial of Sant Feliu, do not mean a great functional improvement. On the other hand, there are others that are almost invisible that will allow important advances, such as the installation of the ERTMS security system in several sections of the network that do not yet have it. Beyond 2025, the Torrassa kneecap remains in the framework of the Hospitalet burial, which will indeed mean important railway improvements, as well as the arrival of 101 new trains that are already progressing in their manufacturing process.
