Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

Local residents and commercial associations in Ronda de Sant Antoni now have the results of the draft project for turning the road into a traffic-calmed space, free of cars, with more greenery and full of life, joining up the Sant Antoni and El Raval neighbourhoods. The project is the result of a dialogue over the last few months with local residents and commercial organisations to address their demands and reach a balanced solution with as broad a consensus as possible.

The project fits in with the Barcelona Superblock model, promotes citizen use, neighbourhood life and local commerce and represents the start of a new approach to all Ciutat Vella’s ring roads. The ring road’s transformation will involve several notable changes, including: 

• Traffic calming: tar and motor-vehicle traffic will disappear, giving way to a continuous natural-stone paving from facade to facade. 
• More greenery: more than 1,800 m2 of urban greenery and some 160 trees, fifty of which are new, are included in the plan. There will be larger tree-pits and flower-patches trees, shrubs and flowers, mainly between Floridablanca and Villarroel, where there is no underground metro to interfere with planting. 
• Rest and play areas, to fill the street with life and revitalise the Sant Antoni and El Raval neighbourhoods. Plaça del Pes de la Palla is being remodelled to become a space with a super play area.
• Cycle lane: the one currently in operation along the ring road is being consolidated.
• Loading and unloading spaces, operating at certain times of the day, as in the case of green hubs, and acting as rest spaces for the rest of the day. 
• Public transport: an exclusive downhill bus lane is expected, only from Villarroel to Comte d’Urgell, thereby leaving a completely traffic-calmed space between Floridablanca and Villarroel. 

Removal of the raised paving slabs as the first step

Work began in November to remove the raised area of paving slabs in Ronda de Sant Antoni, the concrete base for the temporary municipal market. The work should take until March and entails an investment of nearly a million euros.

Success of the citizen-revitalisation activities 

The Ronda de Sant Antoni ring road has been packed with games and activities for everyone since last summer, thanks to a very well-received revitalisation project: 35,358 people have taken part since 23 June. 

The project has achieved its goals and helped to provide the concrete base with social and community uses and make it a benchmark for inclusive, healthy, intergenerational and multicultural leisure. 

The activities have also helped to promote relations between El Raval and Sant Antoni and to consolidate neighbourhood-life dynamics in face of the space’s future transformation, changing the collective imagery that the surrounding neighbourhoods’ residents used to have about the slab space. 

Once the slab-removal work begins, the bar stands will be taken away and organised activities halted. When the work finishes, as from March, the quality recreational and cultural activites will re-open, for free, for city residents.