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 and more of inhabitants
"The expansion of the metro is essential to link the urban reality of the metropolitan area - said the socialist yesterday during his conference at the Fundació Cercle d'Infraestructures, in the club of directors of the World Trade Center in Barcelona-. We must face this debate rigorously, without dogmatism, thinking about what kind of 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 prepared that we also suffer the consequences of not investing in the metro".
Mayor Collboni's proposals on this issue. "An essential action where not enough progress has been made is the extension of the L1 from Fons to the center of Badalona. This operation should include the construction of more garages to improve the service of the entire line. The extension of the L3 towards Esplugues is also crucial because it will connect the new Clínic hospital and Sant Joan de Déu. In addition, we must put on the table the extension of the L2, the great forgotten one, in order to connect the mountain of Montjuïc, the new neighborhoods of La Marina and the center of Barcelona".
Collboni also took the opportunity to inform that the executive project of 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 had confirmed this to the mayor himself a few minutes before his speech at the Circle. In reality, the way the announcement was made was a veiled attempt to disguise a delay. In principle, this executive project was supposed to be ready in March. And it was supposed that the end of the works of the first phase had to coincide with the beginning of the second. But, as he already did in the electoral campaign, when referring to the tendering of these works, in his calendar, the socialist revealed himself to be much more cautious than when demanding investments in The Generalitat. "In order to fix the calendar, we have a lot of works underway - he explained - especially in the Eixample district, and we also have to coordinate with the works on other means of transport, to reduce the inconvenience to citizens".
And then, to the joy of those present, Collboni insisted on the need to expand the airport, to open a debate about 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 the Circle itself, Santi Vila, in a very affectionate, complimentary and above all complicit way, ways that for some time have been they were missing in these meetings of the municipal authorities with Barcelona's 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 ex-mayor Ada Colau, but they all hinted that lately, at least for now, they are a little calmer. Collboni was also very pleased.
