The Bicing on the Cake. Viva Espana, Part 3

We were in the Catalan capital this week whilst Marga was invited to teach at the Barcelona School of Architecture. I continued to be impressed and amazed by the transformation of Barcelona into a cycling city, led by the immensely popular bike hire scheme – Bicing. There are over 6000 bikes and more than 400 stations spread across the more central part of Barcelona – the Barrio Gotica, Eixample and Gracia. I was even more delighted to hear that my family members who live in Barcelona use the system, even though they are normally car users, as it is as fast as driving from A to B in the centre, but without the parking problems. The classic Copenhagenize theory of a-to-bism in fluid motion.

Sadly, due to our working schedule and location I was not able to try out the system – although that is easier said than done, as tourists are perhaps discouraged from using the bikes by way of the registration process and need for a Catalan address. I am luckier than many, having access to a membership card, so next time I am determined to give it a spin. The family currently live just off the Avenida Diagonal at the Zona Universidad end. I would love to give it a go down the arrow straight cycle path that runs for several kilometers along the Avenida Diagonal at the upper end, and also along the lower end to the sea. Two bicycle carriageways, completely separated from traffic and also with dedicated traffic signals. And very, very popular.

So popular in fact that we've had to air-brush out all the cyclists just so you can see the view

Viva Espana, Part 1

We've been away in Spain, where we took a trip out of Barcelona - where Marga is currently teaching at the School of Architecture - to Sitges. This was a renowned centre of counterculture in the past, which continues into the present in the form of a Carnival and film festival. Proximity to Barcelona means it is a popular weekend day-trip for the citizens of Barcelona, and the  admirable attitude to city planning that we all know from Barcelona is of course present in Sitges too - as it is all across Spain. I was struck by the simple example of the car park we parked in (there were 9 of us in the car, so an attempt to make an efficient journey was made). The car park has been excavated beneath an existing street, on several levels with simple access ramps, lifts and stairs arriving at pavement levels above - where the street has been re-instated over the parking bays.

I realise it may be heretical for a cyclist to wax lyrical about a car park, but I believe the approach in Sitges to this simple intervention belies a more mature and long-term approach to urban thinking than has ever been the case in the UK. It would be highly unlikley for a similarly sized seaside town in Britain to fund an underground carpark of this scale, preferring probably the above ground or multi-storey approach. And yet this solution in Sitges re-instated and significantly improved the public realm, left the scale of the area intact, hid cars away out of sight and ensured that the people were made to feel important, rather than overpowering them with a massive visible sign of car domination.

What a tragic lack of confidence we have in our own rights as citizens that we don't seem to demand the same quality of urban spaces and experiences that are common in Spain for instance. We deserve better, but we will never get it unless we believe we deserve it.

Website Update!

We have made some excellent and fabulously interesting amendments to our website, including pages about research we are carrying out in Barcelona.

Go to Estudio27.co.uk for more infomation.

And so it Begins...



Photo by KyleF @ flickr.com

 http://www.metro.co.uk/news/841931-boris-bike-injuries-spark-calls-for-helmets

This is a story I spotted in the Metro paper the other day, which I note is the backwash from comments made by the charity Brake, who appear to do very sensible work trying to reduce the number of road crashes. The story also appears in other newspapers and on the BBC. I wonder if this is the opening salvo of a more concerted campaign?

It will be interesting to see how the mainstream press frame the cycle helmet debate. From what I can see, not all news outlets have set the two (some sites refer to six) reported serious accidents in the context of 750,000 bike journeys so far on the scheme. It would also be interesting to see that statistic compared with the norm for car journeys, or the number of fatal car accidents in London since the bike hire scheme began.

Let's hope the policy makers are reminded of the sensible thoughts from elsewhere (such as http://www.copenhagenize.com/) on this subject, particularly if they want the cycle scheme to suceed. I've just returned from Barcelona, totally stunned at the impact that their successful scheme has had on the city and desperately hoping that this good news somehow finds its way here.