Problems are piling up on the R2 Sud Rodalies line, in Garraf, since the tunnel maintenance works began two weeks ago. The alternative transport plan designed to ensure train circulation while the work continues is not working. The reason? Some of the drivers have refused to work with the new schedules defined by Renfe for this operation, which has rendered the new timetable for the trains useless, as they now run on a single track due to the works. The Spanish drivers' union Semaf alleges that the company did not comply with the established deadlines to give sufficient notice of the changes.

It's a few minutes past 8 a.m. and the Fabra i Puig metro station on Line 1 is overflowing. The train arrives—already quite full—and barely manages to absorb all the passengers on the platform, which is now clear. But the scene is short-lived. Seconds later, a new wave of people, practically a hundred, passes through the access gates and gets off onto the platform. A little while later, another group joins them. In a matter of minutes, the platform is packed again until another train arrives. The scene is reminiscent of the rhythm of queues at an amusement park or the impossible intersections of Tokyo, and it repeats itself tirelessly every 3 minutes. That is, the time it takes for the train to arrive during rush hour.

For months, users had been demanding action, and the Catalan government had assured them it would address the issue. Finally, this Thursday, Renfe announced that it will replace some of the trains offering Avant services to provide more daily seats between Lleida, Tarragona, and Barcelona starting next week. These regulated-fare high-speed trains, used to connect major cities, have become an alternative, albeit a more expensive one, for most commuter rail users, given the constant chaos of the conventional Catalan rail network. as NOW already explainedBut demand has increased so much that the service was also on the verge of collapse.

A few weeks ago, Joan Subirats warned us right here about what he called "the territorial tangle of the Generalitat"In short, the article addresses the fact that the Catalan government uses different maps depending on the subject matter and the confusion this creates. The article couldn't be more timely. Last November, at the initiative of the Catalan Geographical Society and the Catalan Society for Territorial Planning, the Institut d'Estudis Catalans hosted four sessions to discuss that the'

The mayor of Cunit, Jaume Casañas, wants the municipality to leave the Baix Penedès region and join the Garraf region, thus becoming part of the province of Barcelona. Casañas, who leads the Impulsem Cunit party, linked to Junts per Catalunya, is proposing a public referendum starting in 2027. Should the popular vote validate the proposal, approval would be required from the Catalan Parliament for the regional change and from the Spanish Congress for the provincial change. Casañas believes the referendum would garner a majority vote in favor: "90% of Cunit's current population has emotional ties to the province of Barcelona. On social media, we've detected that 80% of people are in favor of the regional and provincial change." The other parties represented on the council have not yet taken a position on the matter, but have not expressed opposition. Impulsamos a Cunit and the PSC have shared the local government since 2019 and have alternated in the mayoralty.

They are more expensive but also faster trains. This has made them the preferred alternative for many users who have given up on the chaotic Cercanías commuter rail system and switched to the Avant trains. So much so that in the last year and a half, demand for this service has surged. "I have to buy tickets well in advance to make sure I can get to work and back. And sometimes I can't find seats on the trains that best suit my schedule," explains Laura, who has to travel between Valls and Barcelona almost every day. Her case is identical to that of other passengers in Tarragona, Girona, and Lleida. "Here in Lleida, you either buy Avant tickets three or four weeks in advance or you won't find any," confirms Kevin Bruque, a user and spokesperson for the Avant Catalunya Users platform.

For 15 years, Rubí has been demanding a second FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya) station in the north of the municipality, and this Friday marked another key step in the negotiations. The Department of Territory and the City Council met to jointly evaluate the results of the feasibility study commissioned in January, and the Generalitat's position is clear: building a second station (or stop) on the S1 line in Rubí is viable, but with conditions. Before any further study of the project is carried out, they warn, the City Council must develop the area for urban planning purposes. During the meeting—which brought together the Secretary of Mobility, Manel Nadal, the President of Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat, Carles Ruiz, and a delegation from the City Council headed by the Mayor of Rubí, Ana María Martínez—the Generalitat representatives linked the profitability of this new infrastructure to the urban development of the surrounding area as outlined in the Municipal Urban Development Plan (POUM). In practice, Territori has passed the buck to the local government and has stated that once this development is completed, the preliminary construction studies will begin. Therefore, the project remains without a start date or budget. Secretary Nadal maintains that "any reasonable improvement proposal is always welcomed" and explained that, according to the feasibility analysis, the best location for this new station would be in the industrial park. "Once the actions planned in the POUM (Municipal Urban Development Plan) are carried out, the possibility of building a second station will be viable," Territori maintains. The location of this new stop, which would be in addition to the Rubí Centre station (two kilometers further south of the municipality), would improve access to the higher part of the city, which has a population of over 78,000. The new station would serve workers in the industrial park, residents of the northern neighborhoods, and those living in housing developments on the other side of the railway tracks, such as Sant Muç, which are further from the city center.

When we think of a mountain refuge, our brains go on autopilot and, almost instinctively, conjure up a high-mountain landscape, probably in the Pyrenees. Add a loaded backpack and boots, and you're likely in the summer, perhaps in the middle of a Carros de Foc or Cavalls del Vent trek. Our collective imagination is captivated by long-distance routes and peak season. And that's understandable, but there's more to mountain refuges than that. This is the premise that motivated geographer and travel journalist Laura Masó to lace up her boots. "I saw it as a necessity. There was a certain lack of information," says Masó, who maintains that a guide was needed, a physical resource to bring order to the situation. "The information was fragmented; each entity offered its own, but there wasn't a single place to consult it all." Above all, she detected a black hole regarding unstaffed refuges. "These are the most basic refuges, and often the adventure begins before you even arrive, simply by calling the town hall or the relevant organization to get the key."

The world is changing. The entire international and geopolitical system that emerged from the Second World War has given way to another dominated by the struggle and competition for power, with two giants like the US and China, although the dollar has so far won the battle. And "in a fragmented world, being local and having roots is today a competitive advantage." This is a statement by José Juan Ruiz, president of the Elcano Royal Institute, a renowned expert. think tank private, which participated in the 28th edition of the National Congress of Family Business, held in Burgos under the motto Origin/Destination.

The peasant revolt, expressed in noisy demonstrations, but also in provocative actions such as turning village entrance signs upside down, has inspired the new Brots festival, which will be held from October 30 to November 2 in several villages in the Baix Empordà region. It will combine music, dance, and visual arts as a tribute to a land where "for millennia, the people of the grove worked their backs off to extract green gold from the olive trees." Organized by the Musical Youth of Torroella de Montgrí, Brots is an anti-festival that deliberately distances itself, in terms of its conception and dates, from the large summer festivals that attract crowds and are mostly held by the sea. "It's an initiative designed for everyone, but especially for the people of the country and the farmers, and to highlight that hinterland that is discovered when you look at land and not at sea," says Martí Sabrià, festival advisor.

Carles Llop, PhD in architecture (Lleida, 1958), is the human embodiment of the long-awaited fusion of city and countryside. He is a member of the Department of Urban Planning at the Polytechnic University of Barcelona (which he directed for seven years) and, together with the architects Sebastià Jornet and Joan Enric Pastor, has received multiple awards for numerous urban transformation plans (such as that of the Mina neighborhood in Sant Adrià de Besòs). At the same time, he has also been responsible for territorial planning projects and a large number of landscape intervention projects. His latest project has been the publication of a collective book by the Horitzons 2050 Private Foundation entitled Let's mobilize! Rural world! New ruralities for historic territories (Fonoll Publishing).

Historian Jordi Nadal said this when referring to the Catalan economy in light of its industrialization and modernization in the 19th century. At this point, in the 21st century, perhaps we could say that tourism is – island tourism in particular, given its demographic weight and contribution – the large factory (of foreign currency) of Spain. Without the inflow of foreign currency provided by tourism, the current account balance—more than 4% of GDP—would not be balanced, nor would the income and energy deficits be fully covered. Certainly, Catalonia is the main recipient of the nearly one hundred million annual visitors, with 25% of the total; 50% above its demographic weight. But, relatively speaking, the Islands are, in relation to their population, the main contributor to the external balance, to the trade deficits, of a Spanish economy that otherwise imports much more than it exports, with a number of stays five times the Principality's own, already very high figure. A contribution that represents 13 percentage points of GDP and is growing steadily.

In 2028, the panorama of passenger transport by road – that is, by bus – could change a lot, the current concessions of intercity road transport These are under the control of the Generalitat (Catalan Government), and a new tender will have to be held to award the new titles. This is unprecedented in the last 40 years, since the government transferred these powers from the state in 1985 and inherited a model that—despite introducing some changes—has become more than obsolete. The licenses already expired in 2003, but the government then decided to kick the can down the road and extend them for another 25 years.

After three years of procedures, the urban plan to build a macro biogas plant in Sentiu de Sió (Noguera) has received the green light from the Barcelona Urban Planning Commission. It is the largest facility of its kind in southern Europe—it will process around 500,000 tons annually—and could be the first in a wave of biogas factories in Ponent, as part of the rollout of the Catalan Biogas Strategy 2024-2030. However, both the approval of the urban plan and the possibility of more factories proliferating have sparked outrage among some thirty mayors in the region, who are standing firm against the project and have announced they will challenge it in court. Despite the silence of the Generalitat (Catalan Government), the mayors warn that the factory will not be able to operate solely with local slurry and that, in practice, it is a black hole for the Danish investment fund leading it—Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners—to do business with waste that will come either from Aragon or the province of Barcelona. This waste includes animal remains and slaughterhouse waste, and not just slurry.

The CGT union has filed three lawsuits against the Cartographic and Geological Institute of Catalonia for alleged salary increases—in the form of professional category changes—made by hand and without following an internal promotion system agreed upon with the works council. According to ARA, two of these complaints have already been admitted for processing and are pending resolution by the contentious-administrative division of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC). "Salary categories are recognized by hand without following public criteria. Management decides this for whatever reasons, and we understand that this often corresponds to favoritism within the company," the CGT alleges.

A quarter of the 39 fatal traffic accidents that occurred in the first three months of the year were head-on collisions. In this quarter, 41 people died, 46% more than in the same period in 2024, according to data released this Tuesday by the Catalan Traffic Service, the same day the Catalan government announced a €131 million investment to prevent head-on collisions. The plan, which will be rolled out over two years, includes installing rumble strips along 700 kilometers of the road network and 76 kilometers of reversible lanes on single-lane roads.

Three hours of meeting and ten agreements on the table. The Generalitat, the Spanish government and the presidents of Adif and Renfe have left the emergency meeting this Sunday - convened yesterday by the Department of Territory - with a list of measures that should help improve the train service in Catalonia or, at least, avoid The chaos in railway mobility experienced in the last seven days.

Socialist Government's handbrake on the ambitious plan to create deterrent macro-parking lots - or park and ride, in its English name—which had been designed by the previous government of Junts and ERC and which was intended to relieve car congestion in Barcelona. The obvious failure of the first of these macro-parkings, which was inaugurated last summer in Martorell, has led Salvador Illa's executive to halt the thirty projects that had been started and to rethink the need for these large infrastructures, which were supposed to be a stimulus to improve mobility and reduce pollution in the metropolitan area.

It was Wednesday, March 30, 2011. Around 9 in the morning his mother, Saturnina, died, and around 9 in the evening his wife, Fernanda, died. "It was a hard blow," Feliciano Hernández (Pozuel del Campo, Teruel, 1952) spits out crudely. "Suddenly I was alone and I had two options. To shut myself in at home or to continue in the world of football. It has helped me a lot. It has served to keep me encouraged, happy. To fight, to go out. At home you say "fuck", but being here relieves you mentally. It seems to unburden you of what happened. The numbers say that it is the worst team in the lowest category of Catalan men's football, the fourth Catalan league. Eighteen defeats in eighteen games: two by 15-0, one by 14-0 and three by 10-0. Seven goals for and 147 goals against.

In Bovera, at the southern tip of Les Garrigues, there is a four-bedroom house with a bakery for rent for €250 per month. The offer was announced by the town council in 2020 to attract newcomers who wanted to bake bread for its 200 inhabitants. Last year, a family accepted the deal, but a few months later reconsidered and left for Barcelona. Now Bovera is again without a bakery, forcing people to travel to Granadella (seven kilometres away) to buy bread. The City Council's proposal still stands, but mayor Òscar Acero feels pessimistic. "Nobody wants to come and live in villages," he laments. Despite offering this business without local taxes, there are still no bidders.