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Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars
- pmontra 10y agoGreat idea! The only puzzling point is the 10 km/h limit. In my experience it's almost impossible to go that slow. Better to set the limit at 20 km/h and cope with the conditions of the road. It will be slow for bicycles too. It forces bikers to go on the roads for cars or be very patient. Maybe it's the intended effect but I don't approve it.
- masklinn 10y ago> Great idea! The only puzzling point is the 10 km/h limit. In my experience it's almost impossible to go that slow. Are you in europe? Keep in mind most EU drivers drive stick, and most cars in barcelona would be "city" cars, C-segment or below (compact and smaller in US segmentation). Depends on the exact car of course, but in my experience 1st and slow 2nd should be well into that range, and trivial to achieve on flat road (either gas up in 1st, or if the car has enough torque shift to second and idle along).
- honkhonkpants 10y agoThis is actually a big problem in the USA. Everyone has a powerful car with automatic transmission. On level ground these will eventually accelerate to 15MPH unless the driver uses the brake. A manual transmission, or electric drive, is ever so much more civilized.
- vosper 10y agoI'd guess that people in the US spend a lot more time on freeways than Europeans do. A powerful engine is good for that (quietness, ability to overtake / maintain speed on hills). Automatic transmissions are great for freeways because they allow for cruise control. I have a pet theory that if everyone on the freeway used cruise control all the time the freeway would be safer and less stressful. That's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to self-driving cars :) Edit: I would imagine it would be straightforward to restrict the max speed that a vehicle can reach without the drivers foot on the pedal (there may even already be such a rule). The ability to regulate the speed already exists within the cruise control system.
- ghaff 10y agoYou can have cruise control on a stick. I rarely use it but my manual car has it. On most (barring long climbs and descents) freeways with free moving traffic, you pretty much put the stick in top gear and leave it. The big win with an automatic is stop and go traffic.
- vosper 10y agoAre there limitations to cruise control on manual? Presumably if it's a true manual gearbox the car can't shift automatically, so if you were to encounter an upward slope that required a down-shift what happens?
- detaro 10y agoYes, it is limited to what the car can do in that gear, so you have to downshift manually (and re-set the cruise control).
- pmontra 10y agoMy old car had one. It disengaged when I touched brakes or the clutch. I could accelerate and it felt back to the programmed speed when I left the pedal. It never shifted, obviously.
- andrepd 10y agoHuh. I've never thought of that. Lol at that last sentence though :).
- pmontra 10y agoYes, I'm in Europe. Try driving at 10 km/h for 100 m. It's 2.7 m/s, an exercise of patience. I'd prefer a higher limit and be reasonable. I go even slower and stop if the road is full of pedestrians, all of us had to do that sometimes. But 10 km/h with an empty street? 20 km/h would do.
- slazaro 10y agoThe point is that you should only drive on these streets at the beginning and end of your trip, so it would be like slow 100m at the start, then a longer trip, then slow 100m. I don't think that's a problem.
- ghaff 10y agoThe article does note that the plan also includes a lot of new bike lanes. The idea here is for the superblocks to be pedestrian friendly, i.e. they're effectively big sidewalks with a limited amount of slow moving local vehicular traffic. Unless you have segregated lanes, bike traffic under those circumstances can't just zip along as if it's on a road. (Habits in this respect do seem to vary by country. I was just in Japan and found I needed to be very aware on sidewalks because there were a lot of bikes. I needed to be very conscious not to make changes of direction without first checking that there wasn't an approaching bike behind me.)
- paulsutter 10y agoIt's a US publication, so they mention 10mph at first, later explaining that the actual limit it 20kph (12mph).
- _ZeD_ 10y agonope, it's a two phases plan: they will begin with 20Km/h in phase one and then to 10Km/h in phase two
- vertex-four 10y agoFor the record, buses in Glasgow have to travel at 10mph to enter the bus station, and do so with ease. I've been in a car driving at 5mph into a campsite. If you're driving a car beefy enough that it's impossible to do that, in the middle of a city where people respect pedestrian life... maybe it's a better idea to park-and-ride instead?
- masklinn 10y ago> For the record, buses in Glasgow have to travel at 10mph to enter the bus station, and do so with ease. Buses and trucks tend to have gearboxes with lots of gears (e.g. 12 forward and 6 back), so they can afford low gears with very high ratios (engine to wheel rpm) for fine manoeuvres. > If you're driving a car beefy enough that it's impossible to do that Less an issue of power and more an issue of gears count and gears ratio. Also according to other commenters automatic apparently don't truly idle and settle at relatively high speed: someone quoted 15mph unless the driver is actively braking. Even with high power, you can run a stick idle in1st gear and likely not reach 10km/h.
- xefer 10y agoOne of the biggest problems with cars in the city is that they are ridiculously overengineered for that environment. It feels too slow because all that power and speed gives the illusion of control. If it were possible to electronically put cars into "city mode" (low power, acceleration and speed), say, based on GPS coordinates and municipal laws, they could share the public travel ways with more equanimity with other forms of transportation.
- Tharkun 10y agoThis is one of the many reasons why there shouldn't be any cars in a city.
- mtmail 10y agoI think they're referring to a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_street. In Germany that's 6 km/h, walking speed. You don't hit the accelerator at all, if you drive stick shift and use the 2nd gear (e.g. when police stops you) you were already too fast. They teach that in driving school because it's so weird to drive that slow.
- Retric 10y agoIMO, they are better off with raised or lowered pedestrian walkways vs removing streets, but this is more about aesthetics than practicality. As to bikes, they should be on the road anyway.
- ansible 10y agoThat's very expensive, and highly disrupts the walkability of the area.
- Retric 10y agoIt's a network effect, if you abandon street level for a wide area it can work really well. Considering the cost and impact of this change it's worth considering for other city's less focused on tourists.
- lucaspiller 10y agoHong Kong has something like this in the city center and it works well. The entrance to many malls and buildings is on the pedestrian level, above street level. On the other hand in residential areas they just share the streets - the streets are small with lots of bends so it artificially limits the speed at which you can drive.
- mewwts 10y agoOne of the reasons they do this is to fight pollution. Your solution doesn't have the benefit of reducing traffic in an area?
- Retric 10y agoAnything that reduces the number of trips by cars in the city reduces pollution. The downside of their approach is you increase the amount of travel time in car for anyone that makes a trip thus increasing pollution citywide for each trip on average.
- TheCoelacanth 10y agoThe point is for the cars to be going the same speed as pedestrians so that pedestrians can safely use the roads. Cars would use it only to access the interior of the super-block; never to go through the super-block. Think of it as more like driving in a parking lot than like driving on a road.
- collyw 10y agoDriving here, its difficult to get above that speed already. Its a dense city.
- paulsutter 10y agoI love dense walkable cities, though I'd love to hear more about traffic capacity on the outer streets (for example, by getting rid of parking there), then of course the numbers on the briefly mentioned parking plan, and whether subway capacity will be increased (yay), etc. I ask because I dearly hope that it works, pedestrian-dominated city areas are wonderful. I especially love the idea of getting parked cars off most streets. I've always hoped self driving cars will <edit> reduce the need for parking </edit>, but I'm just a dreamer and these guys have to make a real city work so I'd love to hear the math on it. EDIT: it looks like bike sharing ("Bicing") and a new "Orthogonal Bus System" are key aspects of the transportation plan: http://smartcity.bcn.cat/en/superblocks.html http://smartcity.bcn.cat/en/superblocks.html https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicing
- gkya 10y agoHow exactly self-driving cars would help for pedestrian-dominated urban areas?
- happyslobro 10y agoYou could send the car back home after it drops you off, or release it to pick up someone else. That is, if it is fully autonomous. I suspect that long before then, the "self driving" term is going to get abused by marketing until it means nothing more than "autonomously maintains RPM relative to pedal angle".
- bjelkeman-again 10y agoOr share the car with other people for a lot fewer cars overall. Imagine a town with 1/5 as many cars as today. How nice it would be.
- gkya 10y agoWhy not just hop on a bus then? How is it different?
- bb101 10y agoVery interesting idea. However, losing two through-streets out of every three will triple the traffic on the remaining through-street. The people living on the interior of the superblocks will enjoy a more peaceful car-free environment, but the people overlooking the through-streets will experience more noise, pollution and congestion. I wonder how Barcelona plans to compensate the residents of through-streets for the newly introduced inconvenience (and predictably lowered real-estate value with respect to their neighbours).
- imaginology 10y agoThe residents will not get any compensation. That's just the way it works in Spain.
- jurip 10y agoI'd expect the total automobile traffic to be reduced, rather than all of it concentrating on the through streets. Making driving less convenient will push people who don't have to drive to leave their cars at home and go with public transport, bike or foot instead.
- massysett 10y agoIt can also do a number of other things: * cause people not to travel at all, thus keeping money in their pockets rather than spending it to benefit the economy * cause people who do not live in the city to drive to other places--places where their preferred mode of transportation is accommodated--to work or transact business * cause people who live in the city to leave due to increasing frustration with their inability to go where they wish.
- transfire 10y agoOn some superblocks it seems to me they could connect the corner blocks instead of the center block as the one way lanes. This would leave the old middle roads free of cars altogether giving pedestrians more space and maybe let the cars go a little faster (10 km/h is rather unbearably slow slow).
- icebraining 10y agoWe're only talking about 200m stretches, so even at 10km/h it's only a couple of minutes max.
- transfire 10y agoI can't even make my car go that slow without tapping the break. We have kids that play in the streets in my community, most people go the speed limit 20mph and we have no problems. Just saying 6mph is really really slow.
- masklinn 10y ago> I can't even make my car go that slow without tapping the break. That's an issue with your car, not with the speed limit.
- masklinn 10y ago> On some superblocks it seems to me they could connect the corner blocks instead of the center block as the one way lanes. > This would leave the old middle roads free of cars altogether giving pedestrians more space You seem to be missing the point entirely. The in-block roads are for when you have something to do in the block, which is why you can't cross a block through them (they loop and send you back the way you came from). You arrive, you do your thing and you leave. The entire block is pedestrian space, which is why the speed limit is pedestrian range. > maybe let the cars go a little faster (10 km/h is rather unbearably slow slow). 1. that would defeat the entire point of superblocks by still having fast vehicles within them 2. at 400m long, in-block loops can be traversed entirely in 2mn, since you've got something to do there (otherwise you'd go around the superblock) that seems perfectly fine.
- Artlav 10y agoHm, i find this kinda hard to port over to a typical chaotic/radial european city. In Moscow, for example, there are wide radial and circular roads, from which branches of small roads diffuse into the meat of the city under pretty much every angle. Any attempts to rope "superblocks" off would likely collapse the traffic completely - there aren't any alternative roads like a grid would have.
- andrepd 10y agoI think the idea is to apply this to grid based cities, like the kind predominant in the US, rather than to "chaotic" city plans, like in most old European cities. Barcelona is in many ways atypical of large European historic cities, in that regard.
- 13of40 10y agoHaving spent time in both cities, I don't think the residential urban areas of Moscow have the same problem as Barcelona does. If you look closely between all of those Brezhnev era apartment blocks, you'll find that the soviets packed them with green space, playgrounds, etc. If anything, Moscow is short on parking lots. (edit: Not advocating tearing up the playgrounds for parking lots.)
- Grue3 10y agoIn Moscow, and other Soviet cities there are "superblocks" already. It's called "microraion" [1]. A huge block of apartment buildings with a ring of driveways around every building, and a lot of shared spaces like playgrounds and such. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdistrict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdistrict
- drcross 10y agoThe elephant in the room is that personal mobility is going to undergo a complete redesign in the coming decade as vehicles drive for themselves. This will bring about a complete change in usage patterns so doing anything in this space is pre-mature and we should hold off to see how society's requirements change. For example maybe on street parking will become a thing of the past as your self driving Uber goes on it's way to pick up new passengers after it drops you off. Perhaps we'll have more drop-off points like at an airport instead.
- ghaff 10y agoNothing like that is going to change in the next decade or the decade after that. And very possibly not a few decades even further in the future.
- upofadown 10y agoSelf driving cars are still cars. The only thing self driving cars might change is parking. The ability to have cars circulating around with no one in them might actually make things worse.
- maxsilver 10y ago> The elephant in the room is that personal mobility is going to undergo a complete redesign in the coming decade as vehicles drive for themselves. The way the argument is going right now, personal mobility won't get redesigned -- it will get eliminated. Faux-urbanists will continue to fight for (and win) at getting cars more-or-less banned in cities. Cars will continue to get better at zero-emissions and self-driving, but that won't stop people from hating them. Attempts at better public transit will be promoted, but nothing nearly as fast/efficient/convenient as cars currently are. I suspect in the coming decades, people simply won't be allowed to move around as much, and folks will succeed in convincing people that this is "better" for them. Personal mobility will be a concept for history books, like privacy.
- astrange 10y agoPeople will certainly not be able to move around in cars after they use up all the oil. BTW, there are 14 million people in Tokyo (or maybe 40 million) and probably never more than one car per family. They don't seem to have a problem, maybe because they can actually afford to build train lines and don't have commercial zoning over there. http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/29291/if-we-lowered-transit-construction-costs-we-could-build-more-transit/ http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/29291/if-we-lowered...
- sharpercoder 10y agoThe Netherlands has municipal areas designed mostly like the same principle. Low-speed areas with high houding densities are connected using main roads. A very nice example of this concept is shown in Houten, near Utrecht. A roundabout road over the whole area connects to living areas inwards.
- enjoylife 10y agoI just came back from an extended trip in Barcelona, and I saw first hand how there is plenty of wasted space in neighborhoods. Many intersections between dense housing areas are overly large hexagons where you must annoyingly walk around dedicated parking spaces to cross streets. https://www.flickr.com/photos/16nine/22802717995 https://www.flickr.com/photos/16nine/22802717995 Hopefully the city will have buy-in from the residents, as this plan seems to also modify the bus routes. And from what I saw, the locals have ingrained those stops in their daily routines, which might cause some backlash when those drastically change.
- kristiandupont 10y agoIn my opinion, those blocks (known as Cerdá's manzanas) create a much nicer space than normal ones. It also seems safer traffic-wise. True, it takes a bit longer to cross as a pedestrian but I think that's worth the price.
- soci 10y agoAs a Barcelona citizen I can not agree more on your comment. Cerdà blocks are much better than regular square corners, as a pederestian those "dead spaces" are a pleasure to walk, and as a driver makes crossroads much safer.
- vecinu 10y agoWhy is green space also labelled as "dead space"? I thought having trees and green space in an urban environment really lightens up the whole feel of concrete structures.
- nirvanis 10y agoI'm from Barcelona (but abroad now). The whole bus system is being revamped (for the last 4 years) and is being done gradually. It's been a painless transition for most. In general, the amount of transfers to reach a destination has dropped, the average speed of bus routes has increased and the frequency of the revamped lines is better than the old ones. Basically, the buses "adapt" to the grid following "horizontal", "vertical" and "west-east diagonal" routes (as much as possible). The streets the buses run on are either main streets (those that will be the veins of the supergrids) or pacified streets with dedicated lanes (in some cases reverse direction lanes [such as Carrer Pi i Molist]). The transition, as I said, is being implemented gradually, with very intensive campaigns informing impacted neighborhoods. IIRC, 50% of the new routes are in place. New ones are introduced twice a year approx. Regarding your comment about the intersections in Eixample... I bet you will not find anyone in Barcelona who does not love them. They make the city open. And even if it seems impossible, there are occasions when they can be used to make the neighborhoods come together: http://eldigital.barcelona.cat/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/encesa-foguera.jpg http://eldigital.barcelona.cat/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/en... :)
- jowiar 10y agoWorth noting regarding Barcelona is that this is, to a great extent, retrofitting a concept that already exists within the city to "new" parts. In Ciutat Vella, there are a few "outer" thoroughfares, with the inner streets shared between cars and pedestrians. They are, however, narrow to the point where they are not really navigable by anything larger than a Smart Car moving at rolling speed, and it's very clear that cars are second-class citizens. Thus, this isn't really introducing a new "social order" as if this were to be done anywhere in the US.
- HelloNurse 10y agoI see it more as an attempt to revise and scale up the already exceptional block-structured design of the Eixample, which is already trying to pack as much as possible (backyards, terraces, parking...) into the interior of the blocks.
- njharman 10y agoEven before the superblock idea, that first picture of existing Barcelona blocks looks so massively better than anything I've seen in USA. I looked hard, twice, before reading article cause I was sure it was is was artist rendering rather than reality. So, uniform, dense, but no sky scrapers, corners cut off, wide wide streets, wide sidewalks, interior (to block) "courtyards". I want to move to Barcelona!
- jacquesm 10y agoIt's one of the nicest cities in Europe but the Spanish economy is still so far down that many Spanish people with marketable skills are to be found all over Europe.
- chris_7 10y agoWould people from Barcelona not object to being called "Spanish"?
- jacquesm 10y agoLast I checked Barcelona was still in Spain. If they object I'm fine with it but I'm not going to 'tune' my comments to whether or not someone may or may not be offended when for the rest of the world 'Catalonia' is solidly part of Spain. Frisians are Dutch too, and Welsh are British and so on. All of the above are also Europeans...
- faragon 10y agoMost people in Barcelona are not "pro-independence". Most "pro-independence" people come from rural areas, or small cities. Industrial and touristic areas of Catalan region of Spain are not nationalists/separatists. That sentiment comes much like in other regions, because of the crisis. P.S. I live in Barcelona.
- jacquesm 10y ago
- cocotino 10y agoThis is what a communist mayor gets you.
- jacquesm 10y agoBarcelona is also quite busy taking the city back from the tourists. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/11643802/Incoming-Barcelona-mayor-wants-to-introduce-tourist-cap.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/11643...
- johngalt 10y agoThis seems like the urban version of road hierarchy. With the local roads being more like a large shared driveway. Similar to how cul-de-sacs are used in suburban settings. The place to spend the money on improvements would be the roads outside of the 9 block cube. Obviously they would now have a lot more traffic.
- collyw 10y agoPersonally I love the idea of a car free city. (No idea how that might work). I am pretty sure a lot of the negativity of city living comes from the constant noise of traffic and horns.
- clarry 10y agoHorns are a cultural thing. In some places they honk all the time. In .fi you're not supposed to use the horn except to warn of immediate danger. I can take a walk in town and get a headache from the noise without ever hearing a horn.
- massysett 10y ago"Modern cities are ruled by cars." "Some folks, however, still cling to the old idea that cities are for people," How strange. Every time I see a car, one or more people are in it. I also see other vehicles, such as trucks, that not only have a person in it, they also are carrying things (such as food or building materials) that other people need.
- goldfeld 10y agoEverything humans do are for humans. What's your point? Transportation doesn't equal car, but more car space equals less pedestrian space.
- fiatjaf 10y agoThat's a totally different argument.
- massysett 10y agoMy point is it is ridiculous to make statements like "the city is ruled by the car." The car is not a living thing. It cannot rule anything. All the cars are there because they serve people. People find them to be useful. What people are really saying when they claim the city is "ruled" by cars is that they believe there are too many cars--which is a rather odd statement, seeing as cars are useful and people voluntarily buy and use them. It's odd that these people are motivated not by their love for walking, not by their love of particular kinds of spaces, and not by their desire for a certain lifestyle. Rather, they are motivated by their dislike for cars. This is an immediately off-putting argument since most people do not hate their cars. If they would focus on getting more of what they want, rather than less of what they do not want, then maybe they would be able to craft winning solutions that do not rely on taking useful things away from people.
- dalke 10y ago> "What people are really saying .. they believe there are too many cars" No. While I'm certain there are some who believe that, it is not a universal belief. Which routes are the most direct, the ones for drivers, the ones for walkers, or the ones for cyclists? If the car route is most direct, while the safe biking route requires 25% more distance, then the car has been placed ahead of other modalities. If walkers and cyclists are limited in where they can cross the street, then the system favors the car driver. If drivers aren't required to stop for foot traffic, then the system favors the car driver. If there are 6 lane surface roads with a crosswalk, but no pedestrian island or other safe refuge for slow walkers, then the system favors the car driver. Are there ways to run most errands without using a car? Are the roads constructed to maximize vehicle throughput? Or minimize maintenance costs? Or minimize the number of traffic deaths? How much of vehicle parking is subsidized? (Don't forget zoning requirements for the number of parking spaces.) The more the system favors driving over other modalities, the more reasonable it is to say that "the city is ruled by the car", at least metaphorically. > Rather, they are motivated by their dislike for cars. This is not true. The "Vision Zero" plan, for example, is motivated by the desire for no traffic deaths, not from a dislike for cars. Austin, TX is putting that plan into place. At http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-07-08/no-kill-for-traffic/ http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-07-08/no-kill-for-t... you can see the logo for "Year of Mobility 2016", which includes all major transport modalities. It is not based on a dislike of cars.
- collyw 10y agoTo be honest I doubt it will make that much difference. Driving here is a pain in the arse. You don't get much speed up between traffic lights unless you are on one of the big streets like Diagonal or Arago. Still, I look forward to seeing how it goes.
- fiatjaf 10y agoYou meant the Barcelona government, not Barcelona, the city.
- Shizaf 10y agoFunny how 'superblocks' means something completely different in US: oversized street grids that are a pedestrian nightmare.
- Someone 10y agoCounterpoint: http://behoovingmoving.com/2016/08/06/superblock-hopscotch-in-barthelona/ http://behoovingmoving.com/2016/08/06/superblock-hopscotch-i...: "The new bollards that will be planted to stop cars cutting through the middle of the superblocks won’t stop that menace of the Mediterranean, the motor scooter rider" "In Barcelona two out of three streets will be easy to cross, but make a mistake when crossing the third" I think this is a worthy experiment, but I wouldn't roll it out across the city without knowing whether it will work. Because to me, the existing blocks simply look too massive to become a truly pedestrian neighborhood, I also would look for ways to cut paths through some of the blocks.
- slight 10y agoThere are plenty of scooters in Barcelona but honestly I've never noticed generally worse behaviour from them than anyone else, except maybe starting off from lights early, but it seems everyone is guilty of that here. Aside from that however, as a cyclist from the UK, I've been very pleasantly surprised by the lack of aggressive driving since I've been living here. I very very rarely feel threatened by other road users on my bike, except by Bicing (city-wide bike rental/'sharing' scheme) users, and I think that's just because Bicing is used by people that don't cycle regularly so aren't very experienced. Also there are already an increasing number of semi-pedestrianised streets in the centre of town and they work fine, cars, scooters and bikes go down them too but very slowly and usually only if they really need to because there are faster routes if you're through traffic.
- dmead 10y agoThey're called squares. lots of east coast cities have them except they're smaller and more manageable. for instance, Philadelphia has these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitler_Square,_Philadelphia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitler_Square,_Philadelphia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Circle_(Philadelphia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Circle_(Philadelphia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Square_(Philadelphia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Square_(Philadelphi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rittenhouse_Square https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rittenhouse_Square not to mention the smaller ones: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/02/04/a-guide-to-philadelphias-squares/ http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/02/04/a-guide-to-phila... the pictures of Barcelona look like a living nightmare. could you imagine trying to get essential services into the middle of one of those? good luck getting an ambulance into the middle of one of those on a crowded Saturday night. honestly, it looks more like the beginning of a block from judge dred than anything else.
- Oletros 10y ago> good luck getting an ambulance into the middle of one of those on a crowded Saturday night. Crowded?
- dmead 10y agoengrish?
- Oletros 10y agoI'm sorry, I'm not fortunate enough to be a native English speaker or having formal English learning? But I though that a simple word was enough to be understood. I'll do my best, why do you say the streets would be crowded? Next time, you can save your insult and think that not everybody is an English speaker.
- angelftbcn 10y agoAs a local that likes to follow urbanism topics, I can tell you that this idea has been floating around for a number of years, but it's far from clear it's ever going to be implemented. A few political parties have expressed lip support, but applying such a radical change would require a lot of political courage and a solid majority. One of the problems is that the grid in Barcelona is quite imperfect. A similar plan to prioritize bus transit across orthogonal lines has been far from successful, and my take is that one of the reasons is that orthogonal lines have ended up not being quite orthogonal at all. Anyway it's been the policy of the city government at least from the 90s to reduce the surface area dedicated to the cars. Interestingly most of the recent interventions have been on what would be on the superblocks concept considered 'fast' streets (mostly by increasing the side of the sidewalks [Arago, Balmes St, Diagonal, General Mitre] and by reorganization massive intersections [Glories, Lesseps]. And there are a few committed plans also in this direction [Via Laietana, Urquinaona]. So there are really two competing visions here: * Make "fast" streets more pedestrian-friendly, kill urban highways, make the grid work in a homogenous way, increase surface for pedestrians across all the city. * Create a hierarchy of streets (with fast/slow streets) And to me it's far from clear which vision is going to win.
- superuser2 10y agoI feel compelled to dissent against initiatives to directly take cars off the road, rather than improve alternatives. Growing up in the suburbs without a car, I was really excited about carless urban life. Then I actually experienced it (Hyde Park, Chicago). I'm on the opposite corner of the neighborhood from the business districts, so a little errand like CVS or the grocery store is around half an hour by foot each way. The bus or shuttle is usually a wash, given the time spent waiting for it. A bigger errand like Target or Macy's is a special occasion, taking about 50 minutes each way (walk to bus, wait for bus, ride bus, wait for train, ride train, walk from train station, or sometimes take yet another bus). A downtown or North Side restaurant, once you get tired of the local ones, is a similar ordeal. Feeling trapped in the neighborhood was mostly an annoyance. I adapted by buying most things from Amazon (Prime is well worth it) and carefully planning shopping lists for brick-and-mortar stores. After a while I got tired the local restaurants, so I pretty much stopped eating out. I assuaged my claustrophobia by burning either money (Uber) or time to go downtown every few weekends, but generally spent as little money as possible when doing so. Still, it grew more annoying over a few years. The turning point came when I realized that it took about as long to get from my apartment to the downtown train station (about 7 miles) as it did from that train station to Milwaukee (90 miles). I bought a car recently, and my quality of life shot up dramatically. Distances that used to be a big deal are now nothing. Even if I'm going somewhere without cheap parking, I can drive directly to a train station instead of taking the bus. Life moves faster. I get to enjoy the city more often. If the CTA would run more frequent, smaller vehicles on its routes I would easily go carless again. But instead it sounds like the approach is just to degrade the experience of owning a car until it's as bad as public transit, rather than the other way around. When that happens, it's off to the suburbs, I guess.
- jomamaxx 10y agoThe problem is not 'bikes v cars'. It's how the city was planned. European cities have small, walkable centers, the mid-density around that, then instead of suburbs, they have a lot of higher density hamlets around them. Also - they don't have horrific winters in which walking/biking is a pain. So - even for Frankfurt, which has a bunch of US style high-rises in the middle ... you can comfortably walk many places, and bike almost all of them, any time of year. Combine that with widespread and completely integrated public transit (without goons, slubs and idiots ruining them) - it works extremely well. Most North American cities are designed for cars: long blocks, no walkable 'high streets', very wide streets, less density, less public transport ... and often a harsh winter which makes it really uncomfortable for 5-ish months a year. It will take more than bike lanes to change the nature of culture.
- hellsch 10y agoI live in Barcelona and most of the people are not happy. A simple math problem for you in order to understand why. Currently with a top speed of 50kmh the average speed is 36kmh. Now reducing the top speed partially to 10kmh how fast will be the average? Well, it can be argued that the traffic will shift to the faster streets on the periphery of the super blocks, so this streets will have to grow in order to be able to handle the traffic, this can be challenging in terms of space. But what really pisses my catalan friends and colleagues is that the superblock will come first and accordingly the tweaks on the periphery. This will cause homongous traffic jams because of the construction works on the periphery of the superblocks. So this is aimless activism, those who know traffic and transportation in Barcelona will agree that smart traffic lights will make a huge impact on car pollution. Together with Park and ride; offering a fast transportation to enter and leave the city would be amazing.
- jacalata 10y agoWhat construction is needed to create the superblocks? The first steps should literally just be road signs and speed enforcement.
- ocschwar 10y agoDriving at top speed just means you wait longer at the next red light. Average speed will probably not drop at all.
- hellsch 10y agoGood point, additionally there are more parameters that influence the average speed. But the reality is that I now need at least 30% longer to reach certain areas. Ironically this areas with now huge pedestrian sidewalks are full of shops and other business which I now try to avoid.
- beloch 10y agoThis article covers things from a pedestrian's perspective, but it honestly looks like there may be benefits for drivers in this system too. For one, this plan immediately halves the number of busy intersections along a given stretch of road (and reduces them to a third if multiple superblocks are built adjacent to one another). Yes, no intersections have been physically removed, but the number of vehicles using those intersections is drastically reduced. Traffic signals at those intersections can be optimized to reduce stop frequency/duration for traffic staying on the road meant for cars. If you live in one of these superblocks, the last kilometer to your house may be slower but, if there are enough other superblocks along your path, your overall trip time may actually be reduced. Fewer stops also mean reduced fuel consumption and lower emissions. Of course, a big issue is that some streets will now be carrying twice the traffic they were previously built for. Even if that traffic flows better, there may be problems. Making street-side parking on these streets illegal could increase the effective number of lanes available to traffic. After all, street-side parking should be plentiful inside the blocks, and the eventual plan is to build off-street garages. I'm not convinced superblocks will be bad for drivers.
- txutxu 10y agoThe article asserts many things about the city. I don't bring my Mum to Barcelona by a few reasons, and one of them is that she could be unable to cross most roads, as a pedestrian, on time for the traffic light. Of course that's one of the smallest problems, delinquency being the main one (attracted more in this months by the tourism). Also people is uncivil with old persons here, the locals and the tourists. Walking on bike in the sidewalk thinking you have preference over pedestrians also is common here. I've see many fights start by this. The traffic? for me it's all day car horns. Without any good reason. Always just for the sake of the mass hysteria. Stressed drivers pushing pedestrians to finish the cross. The same when walking, people push you for the space, even if they are just slow walking and doing shopping and you go clearly to work. All those theories about traffic are nice. The article tries to make it even more nice asserting stuff. I don't want my childs to grow up in barcelona, and I don't want my mum to live alone in this city like she can do in others. I have attended and helped enough persons who had been stolen, kicked, violated, run overs, and what not in just two years. I cannot take a single beer, without watch traffic problems in Barcelona. And I'm talking of a two channels street, where the main traffic mass, can vary from 5 to 9 cars in the same direction. Oh you are the owner of this car? a bus just did break all the side of your car, he did go away without stopping. Take man, I did a photo, you can see the car number. This was yesterday. Traffic is better than Madrid. But still is a "bad thing" for the quality of life of the city. Also in barcelona you need air conditioner, or sleep with the windows open... this is... all night long and in the main hours, old, big, vibrating and poorly driven trucks and buses all around. stopping with squeaky brakes, in each of those corners, and starting again with the engine noise that could not pass a decibel measurement by police. It mixes with the drunken people and nightly prostitution noise... so at the end, the harley/truck/whatever is just one more noise in the Barcelona's non-stopping symphony. Squared streets and all that, bike accidents are common here, bike Vs pedestrian problems too. Old people and children cannot walk alone even in relaxed areas. And the traffic (for me that don't own vehicles) and the air pollution is one of the worse things when I try to "live" here.
- cagataygurturk 10y agoAnother Ada Colau BS. Barcelona might be very popular, but it is a village, nearly dead out of summer. Cars are already 2nd class citizens, there is no traffic except taxis and motorcycles. Now they are just closing the traffic to some streets, it is not a futuristic super intelligent plan, nothing special. Nobody was using car and everybody was walking everywhere and the same situation will continue, our lives won't change at all. Don't threat this plan like the biggest urbanistic invention of the century. It is nothing more than internal municipal legislation change. It is not making the half of the NYC pedesterian area.
- unabst 10y agoAfter reading the article I was ready to book a one way ticket to Barcelona! City looks amazing, the traffic diagrams are on point, and I just love the sound of the word "superblock" (so nintendo). But after reading all the HN comments, I think I'm good where I am... Tokyo is amazing without a car. Most people live on the outskirts, which is still only 20 or 30 minutes away by train, and without a car, there is no search for parking. Trains come every 5 minutes. Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ginza, Akiharabara, Harajuku... Of course, the money and sacrifices made for infrastructure are insane. LA is amazing with a car as long as you know the freeway exits and know where to park. Santa Monica, DTLA, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Koreatown, San Gabriel.. Good food, good people, good weather, and wide straight streets (compared to Japan). It's a little spread out, and DTLA is still a bit too tiny and too dirty to brag about, but culturally, it has to be the melting pot capital of the universe. You can't tell if someone is rich or poor, black or white, high or drunk, a man or a woman... and no one could care less. Good freedom. But my favorite city so far has to be Fukuoka. A miniature Tokyo, but with better food, lower cost of living, and is small enough to get around with a bicycle. Very attractive dialect, and very attractive people. It's also an hour to Tokyo by plane, and business men ride 747s like getting on a train. I'm currently in LA.
- bluejekyll 10y agoTo me the answer is making dedicated travel roads for bicycles and pedestrians. This idea is ok, in that it slows cars down, and maybe that's enough, but what I'd love in a city like San Francisco are dedicated roads that allow bicycles to safely travel across the entire city without having to worry about getting run down at every intersection. There are some streets that are safer than others, but what would be great is if say Valencia, Cortland, Market, Haight, Cole, Columbus and some other roads through downtown (like minna St. and Stevenson) were dedicated to bikes. Some have main bus lines, so maybe allow those to continue to operate as mixed use with bikes and buses. The intention is to make bike thorough fares which are safe from collisions with cars and especially delivery trucks. This in my mind is the fastest way to transition from a car gridlocked city to one where alternative things like bikes, and battery assisted bikes, can operate safely. Most travel in cities is under 2 miles, perfect for biking (I have a bike that has seats for both my kids, which makes it great for families too). Safety is probably the largest reason why more people don't bicycle, and targeting main shopping districts would encourage their use to get to those places, while also increasing the general enjoyment of those areas, with the added benefit of increasing traffic to businesses in those areas.
- spraak 10y agoYes, the Netherlands has this. The idea is a cycle track, or protected bike lane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_track https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_track
- tbihl 10y agoSlowing cars down is huge. First of all, probability of someone dying when a driver hits a person dips below 5% right around 20mph. At that point you already invite life back onto the street. Then once you have it there, drivers learn that they can't be distracted. Drivers should not feel comfortable when driving in urban environments. That's not say you shouldn't have good old-fashioned car sewers, but the dearth of accesses should make it abundantly clear that those places are just car-movers, not places where economic activity happens.
- superuser2 10y agoChicago has a few streets like these and they're great. The bike line is protected from traffic by the parking lane. Parallel parking a car is easier, and the bikes are protected from the driver-side doors as well as traffic. The pedestrian lane is, of course, the sidewalk. You just have to really commit - a few protected blocks is nice, but people may not feel safe until it's the majority of their journey. Left turns are still intimidating. >delivery trucks. I'm extremely perturbed when there are large trucks stopped in the street. Loading docks are a thing - that building's decision to not have one is a classic case of dumping what should be its costs on everyone else. I'm more sympathetic to taxi/uber pickups and dropoffs, since although they also tend to block traffic (and frequently encroach on the bike lane) it's still better than more cars driving and parking.
- serge2k 10y ago> We still decry bike lanes as a "war on cars," even in our allegedly progressive West Coast cities Do we? I see a lot more articles like this one about how we have to take back the streets from cars.
- wwarner 10y agoI just got back from Barcelona, and was surprised by the level of air pollution. The smog never disappears, even after a heavy rain. I learned that Barcelona has never met EU minimum air quality standards since they were established 22 years ago. And all cars and trucks run on diesel. If I were planning their transportation future, I'd be looking to be the earliest adopter of electric transport in Europe. Super blocks appeal to me, but they don't address the air quality issue directly enough to really excite me.
- praptak 10y agoIt's a verbatim application of one of the original Christopher Alexander's architectural and urban design patterns. "49. Looped local roads" is the pattern being applied here. Alexander even mentions that a grid can be modified to create the loops although without explicitly mentioning the superblock idea.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago> In America, we can’t even agree on the idea that cities are for people. We still decry bike lanes as a "war on cars," even in our allegedly progressive West Coast cities. This seems disingenuous. I like bikes, but they are not more "people-y" than cars. I think Bloomberg's filling-in of Times Square was more radical and effective [1]. By turning it into a pedestrian space, it's prioritized space for living and being over transiting. I'm hopeful about plans to turn the length of Broadway into a park. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Square https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Square
- Someone 10y ago"I like bikes, but they are not more "people-y" than cars" I disagree. Consider these: - Cyclists, like pedestrians, are outside. Car drivers sit inside, shielded by metal and, possibly dark, windows. - Pedestrians and cyclists look each other in the eye way more than happens between car drivers and pedestrians/cyclists. - The distance between cyclists passing each other is a meter; for car drivers, it is 3 meters or more. - A cyclist sharing space with pedestrians can and will disembark and start walking if the space gets too busy; a car driver cannot and will not. Compared to the difference between car drivers and cyclists, the difference between cyclists and pedestrians is minute.
- ArtDev 10y agoThe Netherlands has already done this perfectly. A third of the road is for cars, a third for bikes and a third for pedestrians. Thanks to elaborate signage and colored pavement they have made riding a bike around cars actually safe. A bike can hold a lot of groceries!
- smartbit 10y agoThis is a variant of the Verkeerscirculatieplan [0] introduced on September 19, 1977 in Groningen, The Netherlands. This map http://www.regiocanons.nl/beeld/Groningen/Groningen/_250/Y39.jpg http://www.regiocanons.nl/beeld/Groningen/Groningen/_250/Y39... [1] shows how the old center was devided in 4 sectors (Noord, Oost, Zuid and West) and car traffic was not allowed to cross sectors borders, they had to travel out back to the canal-ring (diepenring in Groningen-language ‘diep’ ~ related to english ‘deep' = canal) first. Bicycles, buses and taxis where allowed to go from one sector to another. It was introduced by the local government consisting of young politicians who took power by a sort of a Coup in the local Social Democratic party. These young guys aged 25-30 years had the vision and courage to give back the city center to pedestrians & bicycles. They reintroduced the daily markets on the central squares (tuesday, wednesday, friday and saturday) which until then where used as parking-lots. To counter objections of local shopowners against the removal of many parking places near their shops, they negotioated with the Shell Oil pensionfund to invest in a parkingbuilding a the beginning of the Haddingestraat [2] 50m from the former parkinglot on the Vismarkt. In return Shell Oil was allowed to have gas-stations on the main exit roads of Groningen. The Groningen Verkeerscirculatieplan has been an example to many cities in the past 40 years, now including for Barcelona. [0] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkeerscirculatieplan_Groningen https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkeerscirculatieplan_Groning... [1] http://www.regiocanons.nl/groningen/groningen/verkeerscirculatieplan http://www.regiocanons.nl/groningen/groningen/verkeerscircul... [2] https://www.google.nl/maps/place/Haddingestraat+2,+9711+KD+Groningen/@53.2167608,6.5651567,18z https://www.google.nl/maps/place/Haddingestraat+2,+9711+KD+G...
- brooklyndude 10y agoNYC does try. But overall it's beyond a disaster. Is there even a thinker anywhere here? People just sit for hours in traffic and just know one cares.