The government of Mayor Jaume Collboni has already chosen the first three locations of the traffic lights that, with the images of Mortadelo and Filemón, will pay tribute to the cartoonist Francisco J. Ibáñez. Barcelona City Council will build such a peculiar device at the intersection of Gran Via and Bac de Roda Street, in the Provençals neighborhood, very close to where the immortal artist lived.
It will be Mortadelo, his figure, in green, who tells pedestrians that they can now cross, and Filemón, also stamped, it could not be otherwise, will be the one who turns all red, the one in charge of telling people not to cross. In order to avoid confusion, the City Council finally discarded the idea of using other characters from the cartoonist's imagination. The Penguin publishing house, which some time ago took control of the historic Bruguera, has already sent an appropriate design to the City Council.
Barcelona will also honor Ibáñez at two other intersections in the city. The City Council is also putting out to tender the installation of traffic lights in this way around the Sant Antoni municipal market, between Comte d'Urgell and Manso streets, in front of the book market, where a lot of comics are sold every Sunday. This was requested by neighborhood merchants and Sunday parade-goers.
And the other crossing that the City Council will put out to tender shortly will be that of Ronda Sant Pere and Passeig de Gràcia, a very central point where many visitors will surely take the corresponding selfies. In addition, Ibáñez signed many Sant Jordi comics here. The City Council expects the new traffic lights to come into operation at the beginning of next year at the latest.
All of this is actually an idea from a retired high school teacher named none other than Francisco J. Ibáñez who proposed on social media to set up a kind of traffic light itinerary. “I returned from Aarhus on vacation, in Denmark. And there were Viking traffic lights there and I thought it was funny. After five days Ibáñez died and then I put ideas together and that's how it all started." Mayor Jaume Collboni immediately showed his enthusiasm for the initiative.
