Barcelona Superblocks: Change the Grid, Change your Neighborhood
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- čas přidán 5. 08. 2018
- Over two years ago, Barcelona set the transportation world aflutter when it announced it would be attempting to reinvent parts of its city by developing a Superblock system by transforming targeted street grids to prioritize people over cars. On selected small street networks large parts of intersections and roadways would be taken back for parks and community gathering. Vehicles would not be banned, but it would redesign the grids so that fast thru-traffic was discouraged thru a series of driving direction changes, street narrowing and speed limits. Thus, almost all vehicles present would be either local residents or people with personal business on those streets.
A Superblock encourages more residents to safely use the streets. Children to play and explore. Seniors and those with limited mobility a place to relax and be social. Bicyclists to feel safer and young kids to grow more confident riding. They also provide more greenery and healthy air while dramtically reducing noise levels and pollution.
I was fortunate to visit in June, when some of the initial tactical urbanism style interventions were being made more permanent in Poblenou, a 3 x 3 street grid in a section of the city where there is a lot of public housing. The streets were calmer and you could hear things you usually can't in the center of a city. And it ebbed and flowed whether it was lunch hour or weekends with families and children. Being in the Superblock gives one a unique sense of happiness.
Much of the initial wave of reporting inferred that the city had installed many Superblocks. But that wasn't the case. In fact, Poblenou was the only one until a second Superblock officially opened in Sant Antoni just days before my arrival. It has entirely different story as the city had already allocated funding to redesign the market there when they approached residents about making the space car-light. It did not utilize any tactical urbanism techniques and went directly to a finished construction.
From my conversations with people with the city of Barcelona, it would seem there are now roughly a dozen new Superblock areas deep in the planning stages or starting implementation/discussion. It will be exciting to see this experiment in urbanism continue to transform their city and the lessons the rest of the world can learn.
When you do something that improves the area and the prices go up, that doesn't mean you did something wrong; it means you need to do it more so there's enough like that to keep the prices from being bid up.
Exactly! Gentrification would not be a problem if every where there were places like this!
The issue is that this kind of intervention is often done in places were people do not own the flats or houses were they are living.
Any middelclass neighborhood with occupants owning the building would say regulation troughtraffic, great street get's more quiet.
@@AdlerMow Yes. And no. The issues are cities can't always change at the same pace.
Some places are a bit fuck up. So students and young people move in and particularly in pre -WW2 Neighborhoods demand passes supply, owners are able to get higher rents because meny people want to live in young vibrant neighborhoods
@@paxundpeace9970 you can pair streep improvements with 5 years of rent control for the people living directly adjacent to it to smooth out the cost of rent. really what needs to happen is we need more dense housing and some of it being non-market housing
cars are the problem, thanks for sharing
Cars are great in the garage, but not in the living room. Policy makers should stop treating every street as a garage.
They've helped us along the way and enabled a lot over the decades, but their time is over at least within major cities.
cars is not really the problem it is a dead object, but people behind the wheele is
Cars are good, we use them way too much
Car have their place, but that place isn't supposed to be within city streets where destinations could be walked to. Cars are efficient when on roads. Within cities, they're taking up space that could've been used for extra housing, public spaces, more establishments, alternative transport modes, etc... And if you build those places for cars, you create more of a reason for more people to buy and use cars due to the lack of other equivalent ways to go around, creating even less space that isn't used for cars, creating an infinite loop of further self-destruction.
This is wonderful. Let's bring this to Portland, Oregon and the surrounding cities!!!
Yay to reclaiming the soundscape from the internal combustion engine!
Glad it worked out so well - it´s a great model for other cities!
Barcelona looks so beautiful. I want to travel there someday.
We need some superblocks in AMerican too!
This kind of zoning is super illegal in the us. We’d have to change over a dozen laws just to have a walkable street.
Beautiful city
Check out city beautiful for more planning content.
San Francisco city supervisors, please take note! Yours truly, the East Bay resident #sfbayarea #siliconvalleyliving #sanfranciscoliving #sanfrancisco
Leonard Luzon vote to remove massive construction regulation and end your protests of “gentrification”and your city will improve greatly.
@@raaaaaaaaaam496 The irony is that the mentality in favor of regulation and protesting gentrification is exactly what is creating more gentrification and more problems! "Socialist" action against poverty creates more poverty to take action against!
A great example
This is just amazing.
Great city... Inspirational
Barcelona::)) this is So beautiful How to Reclaim Peace and Quiet in a Noisy World | Real Simple
So happy for Barcelona. I have great affection for the city and its people after living there for several years.
It doesn't surprise me that they have taken such courageous steps to improve thier urban landscape.
Beautiful street.. I was impressed in the container planted trees. What is the tree species.
Its even better in real life. 🤩😍
Superilla!
this is a test.. still today the pollition is one of the highest in EU.. as it is the noisiest city ... why not take all carrs out of a certain area or district.. the concept sounds cool, the reallity is you have the same cars making more traffic in the nearby streets. traffic is like water..
tuiputui not necessarily. When there are alternative forms of transportation (walking, biking, scooters, bus, rail) removing space for cars does not increase traffic elsewhere.
Exactly what the other person said, but we also can’t draw conclusions yet because the conversion of 9 blocks is not the same as the conversion of the whole city. And, yes, there should be a difference between roads, which take you between places, and streets, which provide the place itself. Moreover, an environment built around pedestrian centers with avenues connecting them is far better designed for public transit to use, as any given line will be service if the same spots that people would be driving to anyway, and it would artificially increase the “density” necessary for public transit by limiting through traffic to the main avenues. All and all, a far better method of urban planning.
I would say that given your point, I think there also must be an emphasis (not sure if they also have equivalent plans for this in Barcelona) on making alternative modes of transport between cities and further away - better and more reliable. You could remove cars from city streets and remove the 3% of those who just used their cars to go 3km one way every week. But, if you pair these cities up with the accessibility of public transport, you're going to remove much more cars, giving much more space to efficient modes of transport, which in turn gives even more space to more housing, more spaces for establishments, public areas, etc... All of which we've realized (in the western world) were things we might want to have more of, or at least have the space for.
do you know about induced demand? If you build better roads, more people want to drive. But it works also the other way around. People will drive if it's the most convenient method to reach their goal. But if walking, biking, taking public transit ... becomes more convenient they will start doing that. Also by making neighborhoods more interesting places, people don't have to travel so far anymore in order to get to some place worth while
Funny thing about planning super blocks and how they impact traffic is it's just like playing Bomberman.
where did all the cars go?
That's really also my question. All the cars that used to cross the superblocks are now using the streets surrounding them, so there traffic increases. (Unless it really had an effect of overall reducing car traffic.) I wonder what the people living on those streets think of the project.
@@mirjamwurtz6408 Traffic follows induced demand. Barcelona has great transit systems and solid biking infrastructure, so as car rides become less convenient, people choose something else instead. Those who need the car for hauling something, or are disabled and can't get on busses, can still use their car, which I think is the beauty of this system compared to massive car free zones that some towns try to implement. Nothing wrong with a car free zone at the city center, but you'll see the occasional car free suburban neighborhood that really isn't in a position to be car free because it was designed around the car.
A large percentage of the drivers became cyclists.
@@mirjamwurtz6408 thanks to induced demand the traffic never gets worse.
i like this a lot, though i would not say to anyone "good morning" nor "good afternoon" and especially not "oh your kids are growing up!"
why not?
@@PlaystationMasterPS3 i think this was a bad joke about being introverted idk
Frumoase grids
Un buon modo per visitare le ciclabili nei superblock è di questo account czcams.com/users/sinachevideos
The idea is great, but these black plastic pots for the trees are super ugly.
very good concept..but if we see from economic aspect ,does it hamper it like business,etc
no it doesnt, actually the opposite
It increases foot traffic so it actually increases business.
I'm sure it puts a slight strain on Barcelona to have to rebuild infrastructure, but I imagine that the increased on-foot traffic, lessened car usage (because this along with Barcelona's plans for public transport, is able to convince a significant amount of people that they actually don't need cars), better citizen health due to said less car traffic, etc... End up recouping the costs in a relatively sensible amount of time. As compared to trying to widen roads, just further making these problems worse.
It benefits local businesses when more people walk or cycle because you're more likely to notice small businesses when you're travelling at a slower pace and don't have to worry about finding a parking spot and paying for parking. Plus, it makes the area more attractive, which then of course attracts people.
general busniesses get more foot traffic, since there aren't cars passing buy and not stopping in but still causing noise and making people feel less comfortable being there
I live in Alaska.
My backyard is bigger than a Superblock.
You're welcome to stay put.
funny indeed not a single homeless person? do they not have homeless people in Barcelona?
They didn't shown them. But there are a lot specially in touristic areas. However in Barcelona i've seen a lot of places where the goverment take care of them and provide them with food and other basic services.
This is about superblocks not about homelessness.
where you live, are there so many homeless people that everywhere you look you see some?
Tell me you are from US without telling me you are from US.