Circulation picks up as the second concern of the people of Barcelona

Last year the city council decided to break down the matter to have more concrete concepts, but at the end of the day they all have to do with the same thing: the circulation in Barcelona. And if they are added, these five disaggregated points place the traffic theme in the second position in the list of most serious problems of the Catalan capital, according to the municipal services survey, presented this Tuesday. The unsafety is still at the top although in a frank decline, but the mobility registers the highest percentage of concern since 2010, with 9.9%. They are followed by access to housing, which accumulates three years of decline; the unemployment, rebounded with the pandemic, or the cleaning, which rises slightly.

What was previously considered ‘circulation’ has now been divided into the following points: Traffic congestion (4.7%), circulation of bikes and scooters (2%), management and organization of traffic (1.8%) and other aspects of traffic (0.1%). According to the consistory, the parking (1.3%) falls outside of this category. In any case, taking into account that about 20% of the traffic jam is generated by so-called agitation traffic (people looking for where to park or vans they are hunting for a hole to downloadIt is also an element that affects circulation. From all these elements, the overall figure of 9.9% comes out, which is only close to 8.8% in 2018 or 9.5% in 2016. If parking is eliminated, which was then broken down, as of today We would be in 8.6% of those interviewed concerned about mobility (they are counting public transport).

Metro and bus recovery

From 2010 downwards it was always above 10%, with three years (1998-2000) in which it exceeded 30%. The recovery of mobility after a very difficult pandemic year is being done very unevenly. The private vehicle moves practically at the same rate as in 2019 while the public transport you still have to make up more than 20% of the lost ticket. To all this must be added the commitment to install more lanes for the bike and the bus or the tactical urbanism that has eliminated lanes in Eixample streets, in addition to future plans, such as the 21 green axes, which will definitively turn roads of the basic circulation network into havens of peace. All this mixed, and with the end of the tolls that has increased traffic more than 20% on the AP-7, results in this feeling of stuck city.

The cleaningOn the other hand, the one that has been talked about more than ever lately, does not appear as an Armageddon in the survey. It is in fourth position (fifth, if we add what has been said about circulation) and rises one tenth compared to the previous year. It reaches, yes, with 6.9%, the highest value since 2015. In the assessment of municipal services, however, the Garbage collection get a score of 7.2, one tenth more than the previous year, and when asked about the evolution of this service, 27.8% say it has improved and 19.6% say it has worsened. Less kind is the answer street cleaning: 30.7% say that it is worse for 28.4% that they see it better. Although, curiously, the grade given by the interviewees to this service goes from 6.1 to 6.4.

Soil values

It may be that in all this Barcelona has to see pass through its worst moment of incivism. This is reflected in the survey itself, that among the seven main concerns appear the ‘negative social values, lack of education and citizenship‘. This point registers the highest percentage in the entire historical series (since 1989) with 3.9%. In the last three years, this value was 2% (2018), 2.4% (2019) and 2.6% (2020), and only four times in 32 years has it exceeded 3%.

Despite everything, the satisfaction of living in Barcelona rises two tenths to a score of 7.5 after the survey in 2020 left the lowest score in this regard. Despite this increase, 28% say that they would leave town if they could, a figure that falls slightly compared to last year, when 30% wanted to pack. Much had to do with the pandemic and confinement straits, which was especially primed with large urban concentrations. Or the fact that the average floor in the city is about 70 square meters on average.

In fact, most indicators show a slight improvement compared to the year in which the covid was especially hard. It is also noted by the municipal government, which sees how its management is approved by 76.9% of those interviewed. The score of the 26 municipal services that are the subject of the interview has also improved. In fact, only one suspends the note: the car parks.

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