The chaos of the commuter rail system and the success of the buses cause the metro at Fabra i Puig station to collapse.

BarcelonaIt'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.

The Fabra i Puig station has been this overcrowded during the early morning hours for weeks now. "It's unbelievable. Some days you can't even fit on the platform, imagine what it's like inside the metro," explains Joan, who comes from outside Barcelona to study in the city center. Alina, who also comes to work, understands the problem: "I come by bus. Well, me and most people. We all come by bus," she points out. The answer to this overcrowding is, indeed, above ground. Right above is the bus station of the same name. There are buses everywhere, inside and outside the station. And a huge pedestrian crossing spans Meridiana Avenue, which is what causes the waves of people every few seconds. Commuters get off the bus, wait their turn at the pedestrian crossing, cross the street, and get off at the metro.

There are three factors that have coincided and brought Fabra i Puig to its limit. The first is the commuter rail crisis, which has led more people to choose the bus for their commute. So much so that many intercity lines are now operating with additional buses. According to data from Barcelona Serveis Municipals (BSM), the Fabra i Puig bus station currently serves 12 regular intercity lines. The second reason for the congestion—but stemming from the first—is that the station also handles all the buses that are part of the alternative road plan for the R3 and R7 commuter rail line construction. Currently, Renfe has 57 buses, making 270 trips a day. And there's a third factor: Meridiana Avenue is under construction due to the redevelopment of La Sagrera, and this is causing many passengers to get off the bus one stop before the terminus, at Fabra i Puig, and take the metro to save time by avoiding the above-ground construction section. "It's a very busy stop," confirm sources in the sector.

More busy areas

"It might seem like an isolated incident, but it's not. What's happening on Fabra i Puig is not a one-off," says José Maria Chavarría, president of the bus companies' association Fecav. "The Diagonal is also very congested; we have buses stopping in the first and second lanes every day. And it's the same on Gran Via; double-parking is even a safety issue. All of this should be a thing of the past—we're in Europe, after all!" he laments.

In the last four years, regular bus lines throughout Catalonia have doubled their passenger numbers, according to data from the employers' association. The factors are varied: the rail crisis, population growth, the housing crisis that forces people to move further away, young people and recent arrivals who tend to keep their driver's licenses, and a fare policy with discounts that has further promoted the use of public transport. But in recent months the answer is clear: "What we're seeing is that we're absorbing Renfe's passengers," explains Chavarría.

The lack of a model

The president of Fecav and other industry sources also agree on the underlying problem: there is no clear model for bus stations in Barcelona. The employers' association provides evidence of this with figures. Currently, explains Chavarría, some 4,200 buses enter the Catalan capital every day. The majority do so via Meridiana (with 624 daily entries), where Fabra i Puig is located. Another 483 enter via Diagonal, which is the other most congested point and lacks a defined infrastructure, and 194 enter via Gran Via from the Llobregat River and another 235 from the Besòs area. In total, there are more than 1,500 intercity buses per day, to which must be added another 1,500 from the AMB (Barcelona Metropolitan Area), 226 from the Ministry of Transport, and 856 from other services. Separately, there are all the TMB (Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona) buses operating within the city.

All these buses are currently served by only three major infrastructures: Estació del Nord, Estació de Fabra i Puig, and Estació de Sants, which will undergo changes with the remodeling of the train station. Sources from the Department of Territory assure that they are working to "preserve" the proper functioning of these stations and indicate that improvements to access to the city are planned with the installation of more bus/HOV lanes. Furthermore, they emphasize that the future La Sagrera bus station, already built, "is awaiting the City Council's approval of the architectural and installation work to complete it."

Territori points out that a fourth station is also planned for Plaça Espanya—for which there is still no budget or project—and that another station is being considered for Diagonal Avenue. "There is a clear infrastructure deficit; the necessary work hasn't been done," responds the president of the employers' association, who continues: "We've been asking for underground and above-ground stations for decades, like other cities have. And how many have been built? None." "What's needed is a political agreement among all the parties governing the city, reached in consensus with the Generalitat (Catalan government)" to guarantee a model for the city, proposes Chavarria.

The potential Diagonal station is a clear example. Just a few weeks ago, the mayor of Barcelona, ​​Jaume Collboni, admitted that there are two options on the table: installing it in Francesc Macià or Maria Cristina. "Whatever it is will be better than occupying surface lanes," Chavarría remarks. "But they've been talking about this for two decades, planning them, and they still don't exist," he points out. The president of the employers' association concludes: "We must improve these infrastructures with clear, comprehensive policies and a long-term vision."