Tactical Urbanism
Social distancing has meant pedestrians take up more room. It’s a development born of necessity, but maybe one that happens to chime with recent thinking on street priorities.
As we speak (28th April) Barcelona city council is announcing new mobility measures for the easing of lockdown. Radical plans to increase pavement size, cycle lanes and public transport, to the detriment of the car, are being unveiled. It’s unclear how long these changes will be in place.
Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but it doesn’t feel temporary. It feels like movement in a direction we knew should be taken, which was creeping until seismic events forced emergency acceleration. Could it be that the ground recently gained by pedestrians will be retained?
It’s a shift that Barcelona has seen over the last few years, with the development of the superilles, or superblocks, of which there are 6, with hundreds planned. The superblock is comprised of 9 city blocks which are closed to through traffic, with local resident cars permitted to enter at speeds up to 10km per hour. The space formerly occupied by cars is given over to pedestrians, play areas and gardens.
The Poblenou superblock is the most high-profile, where early pushback (which may have been partly from those resistant to anything coming out of mayor Ada Colau’s left-wing office) faded away when advantages became clear. Pollution, noise levels and car use were drastically reduced; picnic tables arrived, sociability increased.
In the spirit of tactical urbanism, the development was low-cost, gradual and initially makeshift. A participatory element allowed the way the community used the new space to dictate modifications. Architecture students laid out tyres to make an ad hoc playground until more long term requirements solidified.
The nineteenth century designer of the city’s Example grid, Ildefons Cerdá, originally planned for green spaces within each block. His plans suffered from lack of regulation and blocks were built up on all four sides (rather than the intended two to three), and interior spaces quickly built upon. Finally, his vision of fresh air and green space for all may be close to fruition.
Another kind of tactical urbanism, and one that is so in the spirit of Barcelona with it’s strong tradition of ground-up activism (remember, this is the city where anarchy took hold with great success pre-civil war…) is that of the Agora Juan Andre Benitez community space in the Raval. Once a derelict eyesore earmarked for a new hotel, it is now occupied and run by the community. It’s both a much needed outdoor space for residents and a symbol of their resistance to commercial development that is not in their interest.
For a few years now the city has been on a steady trajectory of improvement to the lot of communities, pedestrians, especially the more vulnerable children and elderly, in the face of historic car-centric planning. Fortunately the pandemic (not phrase you’ll hear often) has accelerated these improvements in ways that might just stick.