Barcelona’s Superblocks: Change the Grid, Change Your Neighborhood
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Without dangerous, noisy car traffic overrunning the streets, superblocks are full of life.
Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Barcelona
New York City Sidewalks Don’t Have to Be Garbage Dumps
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New York has room to get trash off sidewalks. What it needs is the political will to use curb space for something other than parking.
Barcelona’s Superblocks: A “New Urban Model” to Reclaim Streets for People
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In the U.S., the term “superblock” conjures up the excess of urban renewal and the breakdown of walkable street grids. But in Barcelona, a different type of superblock is making streets more hospitable and humane.
Get a Glimpse of Barcelona’s “Superblocks” in Action
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Barcelona is making headway on its "superblocks," clusters of nine city blocks where car traffic is restricted and public space is expanded. This BBC video shows how a superblock functions: Most of the street space is reserved for walking and biking, while motor vehicles are limited to narrow, indirect rights-of-way.
Will Barcelona’s “Superblocks” Proposal Work Well for Transit?
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Barcelona is making waves with plans to test a concept it’s calling “superblocks.” The idea is to create nine-block squares of “citizen spaces” — about 400 meters on each side — where cars would be limited. Unlike the widely derided superblocks of the urban renewal era, Barcelona’s would be explicitly designed to preserve the street grid for walking and biking — only motor vehicle […]
European Parking Policies Leave New York Behind
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Flashback to Europe, sixty years ago. Just emerging from the ruin of total war, the continent was in the midst of a nearly unprecedented reconstruction. Over the next decade, industry finally was able to turn toward consumer products, from stockings to refrigerators and, of course, the automobile. Italians owned only 342,000 cars in 1950, but […]