Superblocks: Barcelona’s plan to take back streets from cars

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/9/18300797/barcelona-spain-superblocks-urban-plan

by diggan • 7 years ago

160 31 7 years ago

vox.com

toper-centage2• 7 years ago

I was hoping for more pictures. I wonder how this is different than other shared roads around Europe.

toper-centage2• 7 years ago

The 2016 article fortunately gives some more clarity on it.

dang• 7 years ago

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12237966

diggan3• 7 years ago

It's a series of 5 articles, each article having at least ten pictures. Not sure if you missed those, or you're asking for even more pictures. Could probably dig out some from the city government if it's the latter.

RHSeeger• 7 years ago

I didn't even notice it linked out to stories. I read it as five slides.

soneil• 7 years ago

The main difference I see is that most of Europe isn't built on grids. It strikes me they cause as many problems as they solve. Most road networks are essentially hierarchical - you have (more or less) arteries, collectors/feeders, and local roads. Local roads should be for local access, and collectors/feeders consolidate access between arteries and local roads.

In the grid, it feels like there is no local road - just arteries (eg Barcelona's diagonals) and .. roads. You can try to downgrade a feeder into a local road using "traffic calming" measures; speed bumps, speed limits, one way systems - but the moment there's any congestion on the intended feeders, people will try to route around it and bring the congestion to the unintended feeders.

The whole "superblock" concept appears simply to reintroduce local roads into a system that was built without them - which isn't actually an issue typical of most European cities.

IlegCowcat• 7 years ago

Ahh this is a new article from 2019. I remember the 2016 Vox video when they were putting in the first Superblocks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZORzsubQA_M Good to see Barcelona is going ahead with the Superblocks. Found a 2018 video by those great Streetfilms folks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq2yd4QgL5I

noelrock• 7 years ago

I note the opening says: "(Municipal elections today, May 26, will provide a crucial test for the plan.)"

Does anybody with familiarity with the area have a sense of how that test panned out? I can look up the basic results but wouldn't be familiar with how parties stood on the plan, and accordingly if people who backed it were successful or otherwise.

darkwater• 7 years ago

Ada Colau, which was the major behind the Superblocks proposal, was elected once again, although with some turmoil (basically she's from a left-wing party and got elected thanks to the votes of the previously France Prime Minister Manuel Valls who was running with a right-wing party). More info https://www.thelocal.es/20190616/barcelona-mayor-reelected-a...

elcomet• 7 years ago

How is Valls seen in Spain? His public image in France was not amazing when he left (he was a socialist but left the party to join macron, and now you're saying he joined the right wing? )

slx262• 7 years ago

after the elections, the mayor will continue being Ada Colau, despite ending in second place this time. the whole situation is much more complicated than that, but there's a clear majority by left-wing parties, so the plan will most likely continue

CloudNetworking• 7 years ago

I would say the plan is unlikely to continue unless Ada really really really wants it and she's ok dropping something else instead (I was going to cheekily say she might drop her righteous crusade against CIEs, but she dropped it as soon as she won 4 years ago, sadly)

Right-wing parties, such as C's, that she needs to pass on anything, are against superblocks. Her left-wing rivals on the indy side would probably be against it too just for the sake of leverage.

diggan3• 7 years ago

Ada Colau got elected again, and will most certainly continue with the same push for more green and active spaces for pedestrians.

tecleandor• 7 years ago

So so. Although the election result is worse than the previous elections for the mayor Ada Colau, the political deal game finally has given her the office again (in Spanish):

https://elpais.com/ccaa/2019/06/18/catalunya/1560843562_1155...

She'll have a worse position but probably they'll get to move some of the plans.

pauldavis• 7 years ago

I have lived in Barcelona for about four years, and have followed Superblock development closely. Last Friday, I visited the site in the St. Antoni area. It was awesome to see the former intersection filled with people. They were seated, standing, walking, talking, having a drink, playing. It is a stunning transformation and an awesome improvement in the city. It makes me want to move to that neighborhood - Superblocks won't reach my area for a couple of years.

justaguyhere• 7 years ago

Are there any US cities doing experiments similar to this? All I hear in the news are NY's subway problems and crumbling infrastructure across the nation while politicians do nothing. A whole lot of innovation in the public sector seems to be happening in Europe and Asia.

mxuribe• 7 years ago

I don't have substantial data to support my claim...but my feeling lately is that innovation to help humankind (and not only "corporate entities") seems to be happening more in Europe (and not U.S.) period. I feel like U.S. is this playground for companies to do stuff to us because they CAN, and not whether they SHOULD/SHOULD NOT. <sigh>

ascagnel_• 7 years ago

Go west -- Jersey City closed off a few blocks of Newark Ave., just west of the Grove Street PATH station about a decade ago, and now that area is thriving. Hotels, new housing towers, restaurants, and shops have all opened up in the surrounding blocks, and during nice weather the PATH station plaza and pedestrian street are usually busy.

hylaride• 7 years ago

Times Square itself was mostly pedestrianized about a decade ago and a smattering of other cities have done similar things.

The problem is that the way postwar cities were built in North America has meant that the overwhelming number of people still need a car to get to the pedestrianized areas, so over the years most of them have failed.

xauronx• 7 years ago

A really small town near me shut down their main street and built a parking garage in order to make it a more walkable area about a decade ago. Unfortunately, all of the shops there closed up over the years because of a lack of foot traffic and they just reopened the street to traffic this year.

I think this type of thing would require a ton of compact living area nearby (apartments, etc) where people almost use the area as their "yard". The small town I mentioned is mostly suburbs where everyone has a small slice of backyard.

pedrogpimenta• 7 years ago

I live right beside the St Antoni market and I'm loving it. Not that I use it that much myself, but others do and they are already doing it. Yesterday I walked around and it was filled with people enjoying it, and some streets just opened a few days ago. Although it looks very strange, different, kind of "industrial-like" (for the lack of better description) with all the yellow triangles, I'm liking it very much :)

Let's hope it works out, there are many people rallying against this initiative (Dey Turk Er Ckers!!1) I think it will prove to be for the best (of course this is my opinion).

personlurking• 7 years ago

Could you share some good sources of info regarding the development plans/strategy? It's fine if they happen to be in Spanish/Catalan.

diggan3• 7 years ago

Best way I've found so far is http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/superilles/ca/noticies (which is from the Barcelona City Hall)

Animats• 7 years ago

Superblocks again! Popular idea in 1930s-1950s public housing. Peter Cooper Village in NYC is laid out that way.[1] The units near the roads are more desirable and higher priced.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuyvesant_Town%E2%80%93Peter_...

jdm2212• 7 years ago

There aren't a whole lot of businesses or transit stops inside Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village [1]. Barcelona, in contrast, is apparently planning to encourage multi-use development.

[1] I considered moving there, but much of it is actually not convenient to the subway or Citibike. And my prospective roommate wanted to be closer to the East Village. So, anecdotally, lack of transit and businesses is what makes the interior less desirable, not lack of car access.

cylinder• 7 years ago

Stuy Town is great. Gets so much hate. But I actually miss walking my dog around Stuy Town and speaking with elderly locals who had lived in the same apartment for 50 years more than anything else in NYC. The inner walking loop and fountain are great and they added a cafe a few years ago. Only issue is the distance from the subway.

bobthepanda• 7 years ago

Superblocks in this iteration are different, because while the interior streets have car restrictions they follow the pattern of the existing street grids. This means that pedestrians and cyclists can continue using the interior paths to pass through the neighborhood as they did before, and their commutes are no longer via the superblock.

Corbusier-inspired superblocks have meandering, parklike paths, both to play up the similarity to a park and discourage through pedestrian or cyclist traffic. This was supposed to increase safety by limiting the amount of unknown strangers passing through, but in many cases decreased it as the available "eyes on the street" dropped dramatically and in some cases totally disappeared. Stuyvesant Town has been spared mostly because of its location and upmarket residents, but the public housing projects have fared less well.

Superblocks: Barcelona’s plan to take back streets from cars

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