Avoid Consell de Cent street at all costs. For the blind, the longest green axis in Barcelona is a real obstacle course. “I don't dare walk here alone, it's too dangerous,” laments Enric Botí, ONCE delegate in Catalonia. Without elevated sidewalks, with a single platform, crossing this street (from sea to mountain or vice versa) becomes an ordeal. They have to avoid the vans parked on the corner, yes, corner too; containers, parking lots overflowing with bicycles and the occasional table or chair strayed from the terrace of a bar.
Due to its regularity, the Eixample grid – sidewalk-corner-intersection – gives the blind a security of movement that they have lost in Consell de Cent. Now they prefer to go through Aragó or Diputació. “On single platforms they lose points of reference, too many things in the same space without separations... They become disoriented and afraid,” says Yolanda Fernández de Landa, who, as a comprehensive rehabilitation, orientation and mobility technician at ONCE, carries 34 years teaching blind people to get around the city.
The safest space for them in Consell de Cent is the one that is delimited between the facades of the houses and the tiles with round reliefs, like buttons, which are those that delimit the space of what was previously the sidewalk and that now serve as a reference point so that the blind know that crossing the buttons means being on what was previously the road and is now a busy space for pedestrians, terraces, scooters...
Problems arise when you have to cross.
Enric Botí proves it. He is preparing to cross what used to be the carriageway. First step: listen closely and wait for the scooters and cyclists – traveling in any direction –, the vans that deliver and park on every corner, and the increasingly frequent cars that circulate on the platform, to stop as they pass. To do so, he advances cautiously, opening a path with his cane touching the houses and rubbing the pavement, until he detects the grooved tiles, which indicate the correct direction to cross the street.
Botí turns ninety degrees and advances towards what was the old road until the cane hits an object. It's a garbage container. “There is always some obstacle,” she says as she tries to overcome it. Next to this container, there is another one. It has already moved more than two meters from the direction marked by the pavement. You have lost your reference point and are more likely to veer diagonally instead of going straight.
Still, Botín is about to reach the other end of the road when his cane hits another obstacle. This time it is a rental bicycle that someone has left in a bad place and occupies the space that the blind use to cross, the old zebra crossings. “We cannot walk safely, superblocks are super dangerous for us, we have to live with all types of vehicles... and all of this is aggravated by the presence of terraces and a confusing placement of furniture... this takes away our autonomy,” he laments. Botí. “We want the streets to be spaces for shared use, but not mixed, the passage of bicycles and scooters must be segregated, the priority must always be people,” he adds.
“From the first moment we warned the City Council that this was harming us, but there was no dialogue...,” laments Anaïs García, responsible for personal autonomy, technology and accessibility at ONCE. Yes, we spoke with the bars and most have removed tables and chairs from the corners, but not all.
Consell de Cent is now a black spot in Barcelona, a world benchmark in accessibility and inclusion, where the first ramps in the streets, the orientation pavement, the acoustic traffic lights were installed (with their controls the blind can operate 85% of the traffic lights of the city) and terrace regulations. The ONCE demands urgent measures to improve the situation on this street, first of all, installing directional pavement throughout the intersection, to avoid detours, "and also very important, monitor loading and unloading, be very strict and fine when necessary," adds Anaïs Garcia.
Each green axis is a starting over. On the Sant Antoni platform, “between the houses and the button pavement there is urban furniture,” explains Fernández de Lara. Another pattern that they have had to internalize.
