The flagship project of Ada Colau's second term at the head of Barcelona City Council, the redevelopment of Consell de Cent, Girona, Comte Borrell and Rocafort streets, had an immediate complement in the upper part of Esquerra de l'Eixample , the transformation into another green axis of a section of Carrer Rosselló, between Urgell and Nicaragua. The project even had the endorsement of having been voted for the most by Eixample residents in the participatory budgeting process. However, a series of technical problems alleged by the Mobility area prevented this initiative from becoming a reality in the previous mandate. Currently, and not only because Mayor Jaume Collboni has expressed from minute one his desire to put a stop to the Superilla Barcelona program, the total pacification of this end of Carrer Rosselló has all the numbers because, at best of the cases, remain on pause.
In recent days, the publication on the contracting platform of the Barcelona City Council of the tender for the "works relating to the redevelopment of Calle Rosselló between Calle Nicaragua and Calle Comte d'Urgell" surprised some residents of the Esquerra de l'Eixample who have not lost hope that this route will follow in the footsteps of Consell de Cent and others. The offer submission period, opened on November 10, ended on December 5.
Speed and surprise. Perhaps Mayor Collboni, reluctantly admitting the desirability of continuing to trace green areas in Barcelona, was ready to go ahead with a project that had been overlooked by the commons? Negative answer: "The tender for this work was an error on the part of the legal services of BIMSA (municipal company), which proceed to withdraw it from the procurement portal", clarify municipal sources. The same sources recall that this project had several modifications and was put on hold at the end of the previous term for the study of the new government, with a view to carrying out "a more ambitious action than planned". And although until a few hours ago the tender for the work was still published, the promised redevelopment of this stretch of seven streets in Rosselló remains without a timetable.
The documentation to which La Vanguardia had access before it was withdrawn set a 17-week deadline for the works and an estimated value of the contract of more than 530,000 euros.
The project to convert this segment of Carrer Rosselló into a pacified road obtained 2,816 votes in the participatory budgeting process of the previous term in the Eixample district, above the second ranked, that of the eco-chamfrans of Carrer Aragó, a sequel of the tactical urbanism in vogue since the pandemic that aimed to eliminate car spaces and relocate waste containers to gain spaces for staying and resting with new urban furniture and vegetation. It is the circumstance that the Ecochamfrans project was the first project damaged by the change in the mayor's office. Of the five planned actions at the crossroads of Carrer Aragó, the socialist government intends to save only one, that of Carrer Bruc, in which it would, of course, erase the aspect of provisionality that characterizes the tactical urbanism of previous period
The realization of the winning project of the participatory budgets of the Eixample, a proposal of the Association of Residents of the Left of the Eixample and the entity Camí Amic, was the subject of an unresolved debate between at least three areas of the City Council: Urbanism, Mobility and the district.
The grassroots initiative proposed to complement the network of green axes in the Eixample with an intervention in Carrer Rosselló, so that a public corridor could be created that would connect the Model and the Clinic, in an area with several schools and social facilities and sports
The affected section is characterized, especially in the part closest to the old Model prison, by a rather low traffic intensity, a fact that, according to the project promoters, should facilitate the action, for which the participative budgets set aside an item of 850,000 euros.
