Although Consell de Cent and the superblocks have captured the attention of urban transformations in recent years in Barcelona, it is the residents who live on Gran Via near the Glòries shopping center who are likely to experience a greater leap in quality. of urban life in front of their homes. After a long period of work for the construction of the Glòries tunnel, they no longer have an eight-lane highway in front of their houses and in its place will have a large green promenade 21 meters wide starting next year.
The place today has a temporary tactical urban planning project with a large zip line and elements for exercise that have demonstrated the need to provide neighborhood life where before there were only traffic jams. With the final transformation, it will become a large meeting space with a large grove of trees as the protagonist to shade a central promenade and large spaces projected at the intersections with the main cross streets, as well as at the entrances to the shopping center. The traffic of neighbors and service vehicles and the passage of bicycles will be channeled through a single platform lane between the sidewalk and the central promenade.
The municipal government of Jaume Collboni has maintained the plans of the previous executive and will not make any changes to the urbanization project in this area of Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, between Badajoz and Bilbao streets, which will connect with Glòries park. The first phase project – which corresponds to the mountain side – has received the green light from the new urban planners and has already been definitively approved by the government commission. Its authors are the temporary union of companies formed by Esteyco, TRN Taryet and the JPAM Architecture studio.
Work will begin at the beginning of 2024, has a planned duration of one year and has a budget of 11.41 million euros. When the works are finished in the part closest to the residential buildings, it will be the turn of the sea side, that of the shopping center. This area will involve the doubling of the tram tracks, which now run on a single track in this section. The action, proposed jointly with the Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATM), will allow the tram to gain capacity, already thinking about the future union of the Trambaix and the Trambesòs through the Diagonal.
