#superilles

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Superilles

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. So from where I’m sitting, the Barcelona plan is pretty fantastic: 186 miles of new bike lanes, a revamped bus system with better access and more frequency, more green space, and on and on.

But the coolest idea in it is "superblocks" (superilles in Catalan), a concept developed by Salvador Rueda, director of the Urban Ecology Agency of Barcelona. (Cities of the Future has a great interview with Rueda and a history of the superblocks concept — highly recommended. The Guardian also has nice piece.)

The idea is pretty simple. Take nine square blocks of city. (It doesn’t have to be nine, but that’s the ideal.) Rather than all traffic being permitted on all the streets between and among those blocks, cordon off a perimeter and keep through traffic, freight, and city buses on that.

Pequeñas intervenciones que cambian el urbanismo y la arquitectura de la ciudad.

Que unas simples baldosas cambien la percepción de una zona peatonal es algo habitual; la zona por donde anteriormente circulaban los coches son cubiertas con unas baldosas y el peatón hace el pavimento suyo. En el caso de las ‘superislas’ (superilles en catalán) de Barcelona el proceso ha sido diferente. 

La opción más lógica para peatonalizar las ‘supermanzanas’ (superislas o superilles) hubiese sido utilizar el ‘panot de flor’, es decir la baldosa que cubre buena parte de las aceras del Eixample con unas baldosas diseñadas por Josep Puig i Cadafalch que incluyen ‘una flor’ en el centro. Pero el programa de las supermanzanas pasa por 2 premisas: coste mínimo y ausencia de intervenciones… cosas de la crisis económica.

La alternativa utilizada ha sido una ‘estampación’ de la baldosa sobre el pavimento, utilizando pintura caducada e implicando a la población en el proceso. Bueno, bonito y barato. Desde el primer momento se constató que la gente apenas circulaba por las zonas que anteriormente pertenecían a los coches, autobuses, motos, etc. la gente seguía identificando la calzada como una zona tabú. La opción de ‘estampar’ con pintura el dibujo de la baldosa tuvo un efecto inmediato, la gente pasó a identificar la carretera como una zona peatonal con la misma categoría que una acera y empezó a utilizarla. Porque no siempre la solución pasa por hacer grandes inversiones, las buenas ideas, en algunas ocasiones, pueden hacer más por el urbanismo o la arquitectura que una ingente inyección de dinero.

Vía Plataforma de Arquitectura.

Barcelona is in the midst of dramatically rethinking its urban fabric to address issues around urban mobility and climate change. Initially laid out in this 2014 Urban Mobility Plan for Barcelona, the city is now implementing something it calls superilles (or superblocks in English).

Here’s what it looks like:

The idea is to concentrate transit and vehicular traffic onto the edge of these new superblocks and then convert the interiors into livable spaces for pedestrians and cyclists. Here’s a description from the Agència d’Ecologia Urbana de Barcelona:

“Superblocks are made up of a grid of basic roads forming a polygon, some 400 by 400 meters, with both interior and exterior components. The interior (intervía) is closed to motorized vehicles and above ground parking, and gives preference to pedestrian traffic in the public space. Though the inner streets are generally reserved for pedestrians, they can be used by residential traffic, services, emergency vehicles, and loading/unloading vehicles under special circumstances. The perimeter, or exterior, of Superblocks is where motorized traffic circulates, and makes up the basic roads.”

The result is going to be an absolutely radical shift in the amount of public space given to drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists. When their 2014 report was issued, it was estimated that 73% of public space was allocated to cars (versus pedestrians). This plan will completely flip that ratio. With the superblock model, it is estimated that 77% of public space will now be allocated to pedestrians.

Here’s what that is expected to look like...

Before:

After:

There are also plans to expand the bicycle network to roughly 95% of the city’s population.

Before:

After:

If any of you are from Barcelona, I would love to hear a local perspective on this mobility plan. Were and are there cries of a war on the car?