Mayor Jaume Collboni wants the Generalitat to invest up to 3,000 million euros in expanding the metro network over the next ten years in order to consolidate the metropolitan reality, the great city of 45 minutes, the city of five million or so population.
“The expansion of the metro is essential to reconnect the urban reality of the metropolitan area,” the socialist said this Friday during his conference at the Fundació Cercle d'Infraestructures, in the directors' club of the World Trade Center in Barcelona. We have to face this debate rigorously, without dogmatism, thinking about what city we want in ten or twenty years. Not having invested in water infrastructure for ten years is having social, economic and environmental consequences. “I am not willing that we also suffer the consequences of not investing in the metro.”
Mayor Collboni's proposals in this regard. “An essential action where not enough progress has been made is the extension of L1 from Fondo to the center of Badalona. This operation should include the construction of more depots to improve the service of the entire line. The extension of L3 towards Esplugues is also crucial because it will connect the new Clínic hospital and Sant Joan de Déu. Furthermore, we have to put on the table the expansion of L2, the great forgotten one, in order to connect the Montjuïc mountain, the new neighborhoods of the Marina and the center of Barcelona."
Collboni also took advantage of the third to report that the executive project for the union of the two tram lines between Francesc Macià and Mossèn Jacint Verdaguer squares through Diagonal Avenue will be ready in July. Apparently technicians from the municipal company Bimsa confirmed this to the mayor himself a few minutes before his intervention at the Cercle. In truth, the manner of this announcement was a veiled attempt to disguise a delay. In principle, this executive project had to be ready in March. And the end of the works on the first phase was supposed to coincide with the start of the second. But, as he already did in the electoral campaign, when referring to the bidding for these works, to his calendar, the socialist revealed himself to be much more cautious than when it came to demanding investments from the Generalitat. "To set the calendar we have many works underway - he added -, especially in the Eixample district, and we also have to coordinate with the works on other means of transport, to reduce inconvenience to citizens."
And then, to the delight of those present, Collboni insisted on the need to expand the airport, to open a debate on the Barcelona we want and then define the most convenient type of infrastructure. The truth is that the mayor was received by the president of the Port of Barcelona, Lluís Salvadó, and by the president of Cercle himself, Santi Vila, in a very affectionate, complimentary and above all complicit manner, ways that have been around for some time now. They were missed in these meetings between the municipal authorities and Barcelona civil society. Vila also chairs the Infrastructure Advisory Committee, a position for which he was appointed by the mayor himself. No one explicitly referred to former mayor Ada Colau, but everyone implied that lately, at least for now, they are a little calmer. Collboni also seemed very comfortable.
