“Amics de la Rambla wants a vaporetto to Barceloneta.” The always missed Lluís Sierra, who was one of the best local news journalists in this city for many years, echoed in the pages of La Vanguardia the proposal of the dynamic ramblera association, then chaired by Joan Oliveras Bagués, to enable a “boat-bus” in the Venetian style and thus alleviate the “urban isolation” of the promenade.
That information dates back to April 20, 2012. It had been almost a year since Xavier Trias had become mayor and there were still three years left before Ada Colau began a period of eight in which the port-tourism-City Council relationship was not going to happen exactly along a cleared path of roses without thorns.
So much time has passed that the PSC, removed from power in 2011 and which at that time had undertaken the journey through the desert, returns to govern Barcelona. So long, twelve years since that information, that neither the city nor the port are what they were nor do they seem like it.
The nautical bus will no longer be a vessel in the style of those that, first powered by steam, then fueled by diesel and now in the process of purification, continue to pollute the Venetian canals. The port authority is committed to stripping this strategic infrastructure, vital for the Catalan economy, of the label of polluting agent and has launched a process of electrification of the docks consistent with this commitment to the floating bus.
It remains to be seen if the America's Cup is going to leave the city the enormous legacy promised by its organizers and by our authorities, but what is already evident is that the celebration of this sporting competition has accelerated the materialization of old port projects. city that needed a push.
