Judicial approval of the pedestrianization of Ada Colau in Barcelona. A magistrate rejected the appeal of the employers’ association of the large Catalan company Foment del Treball against the pedestrianization project of Consell de Cent and Girona streets, considering that the town hall had full competence to carry out the work without modifying the General Regulations. Metropolitan Plan (PGM).
The judicial decision is the opposite of that rendered by another magistrate a year ago. The judge effectively canceled the project once it was already built, in a decision without practical effects since even the merchants who appealed the initiative ended up settling for pedestrianization. In other words: the streets of Girona and Consell de Cent will no longer have three lanes for cars, even if the Town Hall’s appeal against the first sentence is rejected.
The contradictory judicial response to appeals concerning the so-called Green Axes can be explained by the different technical criteria of the respective magistrates as to how to define them. While the judge who canceled the project considered that pedestrianization was an urban reform which required a reform of the General Metropolitan Plan (PGM), the judge who has now approved them considers that the works are only a mobility project which does not require changes. in the PGM.
Reforming the two streets to remove car lanes was one of the flagship projects of Colau’s term, but the PSC government has ruled out the establishment of more “superblocks”. Deputy Mayor Laia Bonet welcomed the judicial decision and pleaded to “continue to transform the streets through dialogue and understanding”.
The Green Axis project does not completely ban car traffic, but the asphalt and car lanes have been replaced by a single platform of paving stones, with priority for pedestrians, and where vehicles must circulate at a maximum of 10 km/hour.
It is precisely the change in use of the automobile, and not its total restriction, which motivated the legal approval of the project. The judge of the Contentious Court 1 of Barcelona underlines that the Green Axes “allow under certain conditions road access for private vehicles” and the loading and unloading, as well as the entry of cars into parking lots. “Therefore nothing to do with the notion of green zone or free space,” adds the judgment.
Given that the Green Axis works do not modify the route or the width of the road, nor its legal regime, nor completely prevent the passage of cars, a modification of the general urban planning in the PGM is not not necessary, says the judge.
In short, for the judge, the Green Axes projects “are consistent” with the general objectives of the Urban Mobility Plan (PMU) 2013-2018, and specifically with that of reducing travel by individual vehicle.
