Chaos over L8 cuts reaches Francesc Macià

BarcelonaHe chaos that took place a few days ago in Plaza de Espanya Barcelona is now reproduced above, by Francesc Macià. "It takes me 30 minutes to cover a stretch that I normally do in 5 minutes maximum." This was the complaint, on Monday morning, of a driver from Sant Feliu de Llobregat who works in Barcelona and normally enters via the Diagonal. Conversation with the ARA stopped at a traffic light, metro waits, resigned, for the bottleneck to clear and traffic to flow. But this Tuesday the situation has repeated itself.

Like him, hundreds of drivers this week are encountering new traffic chaos at the entrance to Barcelona via the Diagonal, specifically at the height of Francesc Macià: the square collapses at rush hour as a result of the the works to extend L8 of the Catalan Railways (FGC), which have forced the upper part of Urgell Street, next to the square, to be cut. At this point the machines are already working to build a new underground train station.

On the surface, The cut directly affects 18,000 vehicles The number of vehicles entering the city via Avenida Diagonal and turning onto Urgell to go towards the Eixample district is now limited to this area, as the roadworks are taking up the entire road. This roadblock between Plaça Francesc Macià and Carrer Buenos Aires is the second that Carrer Urgell has suffered in a few weeks. Since the end of January, this major artery of Barcelona has also been cut off by the same works further down, between Carrer de Còrsega and Carrer Rosselló. In addition, Carrer Espanya is also suffering from the works due to the remodelling of the station below. All of this means that the work to build the new line, which will function as a metro, affects more than 50,000 vehicles a day, according to City Hall calculations.

"There is a lot of traffic, which is still not sure where to go, and also all the buses, which go along the Diagonal," explains Sandra, who works as a receptionist in a shop very close to the square and who arrives at work on one of those buses. "As you get closer to the square, things get more complicated: to measure 100 metres, it takes more than 10 minutes," she says. However, the shopkeepers in the area say that on Tuesday the situation has improved "slightly" compared to Monday: "When those who come along the Diagonal get used to taking another route, this whole show will go down," ventures the concierge of a concierge on the Diagonal while he entertains himself by watching the traffic. In fact, drivers will have time to get used to it, because the two closures on Urgell Street (and the works) will remain in place at least until the end of the year.

A challenge for mobility

The challenge of redirecting all this traffic flow is enormous. Sources from the Department of Territory and Barcelona City Council admit that the "effects are significant" and highlight the alternatives. They agree that there is no other street in Barcelona capable of handling all this traffic, so the objective is to disperse all these vehicles to other streets.

To avoid Francesc Macià, the council has planned to divert the 18,000 cars that normally enter through Diagonal and want to turn onto Urgell Street via Numancia Street. From Diagonal, they will be forced to turn onto this other artery to approach the Eixample from other points. Josep Tarradellas Avenue (which has little traffic) has also been used to create an extra downhill lane so that drivers can access the Sant Antoni neighbourhood via Borrell Street or Buenos Aires.

For the 32,000 cars that go up Urgell every day, the solution is also mixed. Those coming from Sant Antoni turn onto Rosselló, which changed direction a month ago to Calàbria Street. And those approaching Urgell via Aragón are invited to continue up Casanova or Aribau, which now handle much more traffic than before the works (about 13,000 more vehicles a day).

The aim of all these changes is to make way for the large tunnel boring machine that will drill into the subsoil of Barcelona to house the L8. When it is finished, this new line will link the Plaça Espanya station with the Gràcia station, passing by the Hospital Clínic and Francesc Macià, an area of Barcelona that until now had no underground connection and that based all mobility on buses.

Apart from the 50,000 vehicles affected, more than 100,000 residents of the Catalan capital and 8,000 businesses will also have to live with the intense noise from these works, at least until December.