Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Now, That’s a Street!

—

by

James A. Bacon
in ,


by James A. Bacon

The city planners of Barcelona, as I pointed out in my previous post, pay great attention to the details of street design. In contrast to the United States, where planners and traffic engineers design streets to optimize the movement of automobiles, Barcelonians endeavor to strike a balance between all users of streets, including vehicles, pedestrians, bicycles and motorcycles. The result is an arrangement, which combined with a development density as much as ten times greater than Richmond and other Virginia cities, that makes it easier for people to reach more destinations by foot, bike or mass transit.

In our perambulations today, my wife, son and myself spent time walking along (and lunching on) the Avinguda Diagonal. It would be impossible to build such a boulevard in a Virginia city — acquiring the right of way would be prohibitive. I don’t present this beautiful street to Bacon’s Rebellion readers with the idea that Virginians should emulate it but simply to demonstrate that the way we do streets is not the only way to do them. Avinguda Diagonal, the grand boulevard of a great European city, reflects a state of mind that balances the needs of all modes of transportation, not just automobiles.

The series of photos here show views of the Avinguda Diagonal looking west, all from roughly the same point of the road. The first (above) shows the view of the main avenue, which is restricted to motor vehicles, including buses, which enjoy their own dedicated lane.

The second photo (immediately below) shows an adjacent utility road, which is separated from the main street by a  curb, sidewalk parked cars. We saw a number of bicycles and the occasional car using this path. In turn, this utility road is separated from pedestrians to the left by a row of trees and shrubbery.

And the third (below) shows a broad promenade alongside the phalanx of buildings. Here, people can walk, mingle and sit on benches with no fear of encountering cars. You can see how busy the walkway is. Undoubtedly, many of the people you see here are tourists who are drawn by two of Antonio Gaudi-designed architectural masterpieces nearby. But the ground level of nearly all buildings is dedicated to shops and offices which, I assume, draw a broad spectrum of the local population. To be sure, the street was not originally designed with the idea of attracting a tourist industry in mind.


Frankly, the Avinguda Diagonal, as beautiful as it is, strikes me as a bit of overkill. It must have been very expensive to build. You’d never see dedicated bike lanes and bus lanes on a single street in a Virginia city. On the other hand, the boulevard surely enhances the value of the magnificent buildings, which range from six to 10 stories in height, along the boulevard. Assuming Barcelona relies upon real estate taxes to finance its operations, the trade-off between taxes collected and expenditures spent maintaining the public areas of the street undoubtedly is a very favorable one.

Share this article

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

Comments

  1. reed fawell Avatar
    reed fawell

    “On the other hand, the boulevard surely enhances the value of the magnificent buildings, which range from six to 10 stories in height, along the boulevard. Assuming Barcelona relies upon real estate taxes to finance its operations, the trade-off between taxes collected and expenditures spent maintaining the public areas of the street undoubtedly is a very favorable one.”

    Yes, EXACTLY. We in the US have got to stop thinking about the cost of such “public improvements” as being a Zero Sum Game, or just decorations that are not used by People. Quite the reverse, we need to make these public improvements for people doing their daily things and going about their daily lives outside of the automobile, all of which daily living creates wealth, vast amounts of wealth in a healthy vibrant city.

    Of course, a whole lot of people live their days and nights, living and working in Barcelona, as opposed to many US cities. That needs to change in the US.

  2. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    I appreciate JimB’s reporting – including his skepticism about US adoption.

    and I appreciate Reed’s thoughts and his observation that cities like Barcelona are places where people actually live, work and play and many (not all) cities in the US are places where people work and play (only in daylight) and then head home to the suburbs to live, shop and play (in relative safety).

    You can see this effect in downtown Richmond on a Sunday where the streets near the skyscrapers are largely empty and not a particularly comfortable place to be for any length of time.

    Barcelona, however, looks to be a vibrant 24/7 place with so many people that people outnumber potential bad guys by so many that most crime is probably petty theft, vice gangs of “toughs” asserting their territory.

    This really does call into question – what govt does because people by themselves as individuals or even groups cannot drive planning that results in the sterile places that many US cities really are after work hours.

    1. reed fawell Avatar
      reed fawell

      Yes, you raise excellent points. I suspect serious crime is relatively low in Barcelona. Busy streets filled with neighborhood friends and acquaintances deprive serious criminals of the cover they need to harm others.

      Sadly our traditional land use planning separates uses and thus destroys these lively neighborhoods of Citizens looking out for one another. Indeed our traditional city planners, however well intentioned, give our criminals the cover they need to operate.

      Think too of the untold trillions we have spent trying to get city workers quickly out of town after their work day is done. Thus we’ve spent untold fortunes building ever more elaborate concrete structures that drain the life out of our cities, carrying of the families and residents they need to thrive.

      So we spend huge sums that reduce the livability and productively of our cities to the point they become hollowed out pale shadows of their former selves. Left are empty office towers amid empty parking lots for all but 9 hours a day 5 days a week. Dead zones mostly, our day time cities work at a fraction of their full potential, and are horrible inefficient in most every way.

      Our endless city destroying road building! Our self defeating land use planning. What incredible waste! And we bring it all down on ourselves.

  3. Potomac Clubber Avatar
    Potomac Clubber

    The dedicated bus lanes do seem a lot cheaper and more efficient then spending billions on Metro lines.

  4. Hydra Avatar
    Hydra

    Barcelona, along with much of spain is broke.
    Spain also had the advantage of having one person in power for decades, so that plans could be made and accomplished.
    Whether they could be paid for, is another matter.

  5. Hydra Avatar
    Hydra

    we spend huge sums that reduce the livability and productively of our cities to the point they become hollowed out pale shadows of their former selves.

    =========================================

    Wait a minute. People have been escaping the cities for centuries. The first suburbs in washington were built before the war of 1812.

    What we ahve got is city business centers that are designed to support business, for which the transportation system is supported by the workers. It is a great system if yu are a business, but as you point out, no one wants to live in those places: they are expensives, unfriendly, dirty and largely uninhabitable.

    The way to make them more livable is to decentralize them and let them have more space. Barcelonas buildings may be tall but the space between them is ample. so you make some trade offs on net density.

  6. Hydra Avatar
    Hydra

    Barcelonas climate goes a long way to making the streets livable.

  7. reed fawell Avatar
    reed fawell

    “Wait a minute. People have been escaping the cities for centuries. The first suburbs in washington were built before the war of 1812.”

    Which suburbs were those?

  8. reed fawell Avatar
    reed fawell

    Regarding your comment “What we have got is city business centers that are designed to support business, for which the transportation system is supported by the workers. It is a great system if you are a business, but as you point out, no one wants to live in those places: they are expensive, unfriendly … and largely uninhabitable.”

    Last time I saw Richmond back in early 90s, it reminded me of your comment above. Save for the big business high rise office buildings, much of the life looked to have been sucked out of the inner City, a place that must have been a very liveable in earlier times. Indeed, I recall large blocks of cleared land deep inside the city. Perhaps this has changed dramatically over that past 20 years. If not, then ways need to be found import life (i.e. mixed uses) back into the Richmond’s inner core, instead of finding ways to get ever more daily suburban commuters in and out the city.

Leave a Reply

Read More