Until now, the prohibition of bicycles and electric scooters on the sidewalks of Barcelona had one exception that was not minor: sidewalks of more than five meters. They are not abundant in the city, but taking advantage of this asterisk in the regulations, bikes have had free rein in recent years to travel along the central promenade of Avenida Icària or Avenida Meridiana near Can Dragó, to give two examples. . The use of 4.75 meter sidewalks (the standard measure of the Eixample area) has also been allowed in recent years between ten at night and seven in the morning for security reasons.
The imminent approval of the new circulation ordinance will put an end to these exceptions, definitively expelling bikes and scooters from all sidewalks in the city. The municipal technicians consider that the limitation to 30 km/h on all urban roads and the expansion of the bike lane network make it possible to dispense with the small print and are committed to putting an end to the permissiveness of bikes in the space reserved for pedestrian during the 24 hours of the day and is of the amplitude that is. In this way, the end of the moratorium will be completed, which since January 1, 2019 already allows cyclists who go on the sidewalk to be penalized in order to reduce a conflict that has been declining with the cyclist collective, but that scooters have shot up alarmingly.
From the outset, the only bikes that will be able to use the sidewalks when the new regulation comes into force will be those of children under 12 years of age and their companions, without time or size limitations. However, the public exhibition of the ordinance has received fifteen allegations to which those responsible for the Mobility Department of the City Council are responding these days. Among them, one of the aspects that is requested to be reviewed is the maximum age for which you can go on the sidewalk, proposing a slight increase in the bar up to 14 or 16 years to promote safe cycling trips. up to school and institute and adapting to the protected age in regulations of the same field of the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT).
Another allegation that has been presented and that goes along the same lines urges the City Council to allow those cyclists who go with a child on board in the child seat to continue using the sidewalks. The answer to this and the rest of the allegations will be known in the next few days, it is a technical work that does not stop despite the electoral campaign. Among the entities that have presented allegations there are in all directions, from the bicycle promotion association to the Gremi del Motor and the RACC, through the national association of companies in the two-wheel sector (Anesdor) and the lawyer and former popular councilor Alberto Fernández Díaz.
Although the municipal government accelerated the work in recent months to close the mandate with the new ordinance already approved, the large number of allegations received has delayed the calendar more than necessary and it will be left for the next one. Predictably, it will be approved in the first ordinary plenary session after the constitution of the new City Council, in the month of July, although that decision will remain in the hands of the future mayor. If there is a change in the mayor's office, the folder could lose priority and be postponed to an indeterminate date.
Be that as it may, there is consensus among the main parties with options to govern on the main modifications of the ordinance, specially designed to adapt it to the arrival of scooters, such as the mandatory nature of the helmet (which does not affect the bike) or the prohibition of that two people go up in the same vehicle. After all, it is not an invention of the councilor on duty, but rather the application of the recent Traffic Law, in force since last year, but for which the regulations have not yet been developed.
When that happens, issues such as the mandatory helmet and the minimum age of 16 to ride a scooter will be mandatory in all municipalities in Spain. The modification of the ordinance allows us to advance to this scenario and advances its application. Girona and Lleida have already done it.
However, in the case of the Barcelona ordinance, the devil is in the details, and this is where there may be certain changes that affect the fine print. ERC and Junts also presented allegations on very specific issues of the wording.
Despite the fact that the issues that concern the scooter are the ones that have grabbed the headlines since the modification of this ordinance began to be discussed, most of the allegations revolve around issues of urban distribution of merchandise. The association of self-employed workers and carriers, food distributors and the association of manufacturers and distributors Aecoc have also filed allegations. Even the municipal company Barcelona Serveis Municipals (BSM) has done it.
The proposals for modifications in this area focus on the regulation of loading and unloading of delivery tricycles. As usual, some complain that the regulations are too restrictive and others say that it is excessive.
An aspect related to scooters and that is not included in the ordinance are shared scooters, present in many European cities but which Barcelona has kept at bay after a first attempt by some companies that ended up with their junk in the crane warehouse municipal. The regulation in this case will be metropolitan, but the text of the traffic regulations sets a guideline that will significantly condition the hypothetical deployment of shared scooters: it obliges them to park them in the authorized car parks (the same as those for bikes) and always tied up . In this way, they want to avoid being left lying on any sidewalk, as happens in Madrid or Paris, where the chaos has been of such magnitude that the public has voted in a referendum to put an end to this type of shared vehicle rent by the minute
