Saturday of problems in Rodalies. Rail traffic has been interrupted since past 5 PM on line R4 between Sabadell Sud and Manresa due to an infrastructure incident between Sabadell Sud and Terrassa Estació del Nord. As reported by Renfe, an alternative road service has been established between Sabadell Sud and Manresa, with intermediate stops, to facilitate passenger mobility.

In March, the Government recovered a project that had been on hold for over fifteen years: the Transversal Railway Axis of Catalonia, a mixed passenger and freight line that would connect Lleida and Girona with high-speed trains directly. That is, without having to pass through the Catalan capital. This Wednesday, work has begun: the Generalitat has announced the start of the drafting of the technical studies necessary before starting its construction. This step is relevant, as it allows the project to be administratively reactivated with a concrete and budgeted first phase.

The great interest in the eclipse has also affected mobility in Catalonia, especially in the south of the country, which has been the most privileged area to see this historic phenomenon. If initially it was the roads that suffered especially from the high influx of vehicles, after the eclipse —and coinciding with the return towards Barcelona— it is on the train where significant crowds have occurred. The stations of Tortosa and Tarragona, packed to the brim, have doubled demand on lines R16 and R15. In fact, Mossos and Renfe staff had to manage access until the last train of the day, around 11 p.m., took all the passengers.

We have serious problems in Catalonia and Spain. And we have arrived where we are because we have not mobilized identified solutions. Planning problems does not solve them, but it creates hope for a solution; it changes the perception of them. Let's list the present problems:Housing: price and accessibility. Education: deterioration of quality and conflict with teachers. Commuter rail: poor service and unresolved management problems, excessive unionism and lack of investment. Environment and agriculture: climate change, fires, outdated food supply chain, excessive bureaucracy. Distribution of public funding between autonomous communities and the central government: insufficient resources for autonomous communities with the largest part of current expenditure. Judiciary: in conflict with the executive and legislative branches. For these problems there are solutions.Housing. Municipalities should be able to transfer land to autonomous communities for 30 years, with the possibility of purchase at the end of the transfer. A public-private company (50%) builds and rents. Public capital provides a 30-year loan at 3%. Private capital, an investment with a 5% indexed remuneration. An 80 m² or 100 m² dwelling built on land transferred by a municipality costs approximately €150,000. The annual costs of a property under these conditions would amount to €7,500: €1,250 for loan interest; €2,500 for capital repayment, and €3,750 for the private investor's dividend.The annual income of a low-to-middle income family, after deducting income tax, is €25,000. Housing costs should be less than 30% of income: €7,500/year. It fits. This is the solution adopted in Austria – 100 years ago – and in the Netherlands – 40 years ago.Education. Resolving the conflict requires management and direction, not bureaucratic practices. The problem is not money – there has been an increase in teacher remuneration – nor the reduction in teacher-student ratios, which have decreased. The problem is the management of schools and the improvement of teacher training: the scientific component must be increased to promote an increase in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) vocations. Today, these studies represent 18% of university students, when they should represent at least 21%, to maintain harmonious development with R&D policies and the modernization of the economy. And students decide what to study while they are in secondary school.In the 2024-2025 academic year, there were approximately 39,000 primary and early childhood teachers in Catalonia, and around 43,000 in secondary and post-compulsory education. After the agreed-upon reforms, this represents an annual expenditure of 5.9 billion euros, to which 2.2 billion must be added for subsidized education. The problem is not economic: there has never been so much money. The negotiation has been union-based and not professional. The authority of school principals is reduced while the selection and promotion of teachers becomes more rigid; the opposite of what is needed. Having teachers as civil servants, and discontented, is a mistake. We are harming ourselves on an issue that is our future. The strength of Catalonia, Spain, and Europe lies in its people, and not excelling in education has a high cost. We are seeing it.Rodalies. The service is bad. In Catalonia there are two networks, with two different gauges that facilitate disintegration: the UIC gauge – which, in communicating Catalonia with Spain and France, must be the responsibility of the central government – and the Iberian gauge. Only commuter and regional trains (and freight that will cease to run in the future) run on this second network. There is an investment deficit of 15,000 millions of euros in this network over 40 years. If we add the new coast line – the current one is precarious – and the garages and workshops, the necessary investment is 20 billion euros. An expense of 2 billion euros over ten years is affordable.Renfe and Adif must be eliminated from Commuter and regional services. They are public companies of the central government, controlled by a corporate union, and in which the maintenance of union power will always be superior to the improvement of the service. This has been seen in recent months. This union, which defends its interests to the detriment of citizens', has fewer than 1,000 members in Catalonia. Overcoming this resistance to establish a new company to manage regional and commuter trains is feasible, despite union opposition. It is better to hire new staff than to "convert" the current ones. Those who do not wish to can stay at Renfe and Adif.An easy and urgent initiative is a train traffic information service that reaches users' mobile phones and allows them to know, in real time, the actual train schedules for that day. It would save thousands of hours for citizens and reduce the annoyance of not knowing when trains will arrive at stations. With current technology, the cost is practically nil.Environment and farming. We need a change in food production to improve efficiency and reduce the impact on the environment. We must increase plant production over animal production, which consumes more water and pollutes more. Eating habits cannot be changed suddenly, but they can be changed progressively with a 20-year policy.Financing. The new financing plan for the Autonomous Communities, pending approval, involves a transfer of €21,000 million per year from the central government to the communities. It is not enough, but it is a step in the right direction. If we don't do it, it will be for reasons of "narrow path" policy.Judiciary. There are more than 5,000 judges in Spain. How is it possible that there are almost no sanctions for inappropriate conduct? Although the majority are competent and carry out their activities professionally, it is not possible for everyone to always do everything well in a group of this size. A reform of the system is necessary, which, today, is politically impossible.I will leave for another article the issue of healthcare – a high-quality but overloaded and unsustainable service, a future problem that needs to be addressed now – and tourism – excessive concentration in peak months, need to reorient the offer towards less quantity and higher quality–. For the rest, it is clear that in many areas – not all – what needs to be done can be done. Politics must serve to solve problems, not to argue. Voters must be clear about this.

The Generalitat's mobility policies receive a significant boost in the 2026 Budgets. The allocations for transport and the improvement of infrastructures and mobility throughout the country are among the fastest growing, with an increase of 30% compared to the last approved accounts. If in 2023 the allocation was 3,067 million euros, it now reaches 3,986 million.

Lines R13, R14, R15, R16 and R17 of Rodalies are accumulating delays that may exceed 30 minutes since Monday morning due to a technical incident between Sitges and Garraf stations. The disruption originated from a train breakdown, which was stopped until passengers were transferred to another train. Once the transfer was completed, the train was able to resume service. In addition, Rodalies also reported an infrastructure incident on this same stretch. Although the forecast was to gradually recover schedules throughout the morning, the affected lines continue to not return to normal, and at 3 PM in the afternoon, delays of more than half an hour are still maintained.

Three days after the collapse that on Wednesday swallowed a crane at the R2 line's underground works, Adif and Renfe have announced key steps to restore traffic on the affected tracks, but without yet specifying when the R2, R2 Nord, and R11 will return to normal operation. This Saturday at noon, Adif declared the sinkhole repaired after finishing filling the hole that opened on the border between Barcelona and Montcada i Reixac with concrete. Once all safety checks were completed, Renfe began conducting empty test runs, with empty trains, before restoring service.

When four years ago I returned to work from Girona, after years covering political information in Madrid, I set out to understand the cycling boom that the city has experienced. One of the first people I spoke to was Anna Gibert Sau (Riudarenes, 1977), a Mossos d'Esquadra officer specialized in gender-based violence and co-founder of Girona Gravel Girls, a community made up exclusively of women that now exceeds 430 members.

On June 25, the latest issue of the Revista Econòmica de Catalunya (Catalan Economic Review), commemorating its 40th anniversary, was presented at the Parliament of Catalonia. The contributions review the last 40 years of the different aspects that make up Catalan economy and society. With these contributions, along with Miquel Àngel Garcia López (UAB & IEB), we review the evolution that Catalan cities have experienced.

A year ago, the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Ministry of Transport, the City Council of Figueres and Adif seal the agreement to move the Figueres train station from the center, currently the commuter and medium-distance services arrive at the high-speed train station site, next to Vilafant. The plan, with a total investment exceeding 150 million euros, foresees the construction of a railway bypass and the unification of all train services on the outskirts, to the northwest of the city, in a single intermodal station. This will allow the dismantling of the tracks that cross the urban center at ground level, which cause mobility problems due to level crossings and disturbances to nearby houses. The project's drafting has already been awarded and work is progressing according to the planned schedule.

Saint John's Eve has filled the streets with bonfires, music, and fireworks, leaving typical scenes of this traditional festival of the Catalan Countries. In the police report in Barcelona, the celebration passed off "intensely, but relatively calmly," in the words of the third deputy mayor, Albert Batlle, who, accompanied by Mayor Jaume Collboni, went to the Bogatell breakwaters to explain the night's incidents and check that the city's beaches had opened clean and ready for the earliest swimmers.

Summer arrives and works proliferate (even more) in Barcelona. The City Council and the Generalitat have made the now-classic announcement of mobility disruptions for this summer and have specified that they plan to carry out some forty actions in the Catalan capital. These are 24 works and 18 paving operations that will directly affect the city's mobility. As every year, the administration tries to accumulate many of these tasks in the summer, specifically in August, precisely because it is the period of the year with fewer vehicles and, consequently, with fewer disturbances for residents and less impact.

Catalonia's railway network was briefly paralyzed on Tuesday on two occasions. While at midday trains in the Barcelona area were suspended for half an hour due to an incident at the Traffic Control Center (CCT) at Estació de França, Adif reported that traffic was interrupted again three hours later, at 3:30 PM, this time affecting all of Catalonia. The stoppages would be attributed to the IT management of the CCT by the company Siemens. Although both incidents were brief and technical teams were able to restore service a few minutes after publicly reporting the general breakdown, delays are expected to persist throughout the day. In response to these errors, both Adif and Rodalies have announced that they will initiate "legal action against Siemens".

L'Eixample and Ciutat Vella will be the two districts most affected by the visit of Pope Leo XIV this week in Barcelona. The pontiff will land this Tuesday at El Prat airport and an extraordinary security operation will begin, with up to 7,000 police officers. The Pope's passage will also involve closures that will last for days in some parts of the city and various impacts on transport.

I am writing these lines from a cafe, in Barcelona, the kind that has wifi and where they don't judge you if you write for a while (and they also don't want to serve you toast with alvoexpat). There's a driver who has left his car in a no-parking zone to quickly go buy something at L'Ametller. He didn't realize that by leaving it on that corner, he's blocking the bus, which is stuck in the middle of the road. The chaos is phenomenal. And lulled by the sound of horns, I hear, on El matí de Catalunya Ràdio, the mayor of Barcelona. He says he will eliminate the service of I am therefore calling on all users, especially tourists, who use them. There is very, very little time left and the rate of fines cannot be reduced! The service must continue to be a disaster until 2027. You must rent bikes and park them wherever you feel like it (or wherever your ramen is), as you have been doing. You must rent bikes and abandon them in the middle of the sidewalk, because you're too lazy to park them where they belong and you prefer to get a fine that you won't pay. You must hurry across pedestrian crossings, trying to run over any grandmother crossing with her walker. You must ring your bell, with pleased hysteria, in the Francesc Macià lane, when someone crosses your path with the noble and extravagant intention of catching a taxi from the stand and hasn't brought – to avoid stepping on your sacred path – Doraemon's gorrocòpter

"Oh, it's difficult to say when the works will begin. It's a complex, very important and strategic line for the country. The urban planning part has been done since 2010 and now we will have to start with studies and projects. It won't be tomorrow; these infrastructures cost". These are statements by the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, to Catalunya Ràdio about the macro-project that has been decisive to unblock the approval of the budgets: the orbital railway line. ERC wants to reactivate a plan that has been in a drawer for twenty years to give its "yes" to the accounts. In fact, the Republicans present it as a future bet for a network that this year has experienced an unprecedented crisis and is still trying to recover some semblance of normality.

Line 4 of the metro will once again suffer a summer with works. The director of projects for the Department of Territory, Encarna Ramos, explained this Tuesday during the neighborhood council of the Dreta de l'Eixample that the Verdaguer station on the yellow line will be out of service for two months. As she detailed, it will not be possible to access the platform of this line from July 6th and for eight weeks. The works, however, will not force the interruption of the train service, which will run through the station, but without stopping.

Fewer (polluting) cars and more bicycles. The Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) council has approved this Tuesday the new Metropolitan Urban Mobility Plan (PMMU) 2025-2030, which foresees restricting the passage of vehicles with a yellow sticker through low-emission zones (ZBE) within two years, in 2028. It is the second attempt to deploy this protection belt for air quality, after the pandemic frustrated the initial plan to extend the ban to the yellow sticker as early as 2022. The AMB's proposal is based on the Generalitat's current regulatory framework, which obliges cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants to limit this type of vehicle, first for cars and motorcycles and, later (in 2030), for heavy vehicles. However, the same entity admits that it does not have the capacity to force municipalities to apply the restrictions, nor to make use of the sanctioning regime.

"Public transport should be considered an essential service, just like education or healthcare." This is one of the maxims of Joan Carles Salmerón, the director of the Centre d'Estudis del Transport Tèrminus and one of the experts in mobility in Catalonia. This week he has presented the book The bus and coach in Catalonia, the first publication that collects the entire history of the sector. All of this, at a time when buses have taken over from Rodalies, which is still struggling to recover from the crisis opened in January, after the fatal accident in Gelida.

Change of direction in the process to modernize the more than 800 intercity bus lines in Catalonia. As ARA has learned, the Government is reportedly working to extend the concessions again with the same operators and thus maintain a system that has been running for more than two decades with expired contracts. The fact is that the current licenses – already extended in 2003 for another 25 years – expire very soon, in 2028, and everything indicates that the Department of Territory is now studying a new extension, which could last for another decade. Industry sources consider the technical agreement a done deal and point out that only political approval is needed, expected in the coming weeks.