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El Coll gains pedestrian space and improves access beside Park Güell
Access to the upper part of El Coll is entering a phase of works that will change everyday mobility at this point in Gràcia, beside Park Güell. The intervention will reorganise more than 2,700 square metres between Santuari, Ceuta, Portell and Tirso streets, a narrow, sloping area with a great deal of neighbourhood activity.
The work will last 17 months and has a budget of 3.6 million euros. The project seeks to resolve accessibility problems, widen pavements, improve bus circulation and organise an environment where families, schools, residents and visitors coincide.
The first phase focuses on Carrer del Portell, before moving on through Tirso, Ceuta and Santuari. The works will be carried out in sections to reduce the impact, although for more than a year the neighbourhood will have to adapt routes, access and arrival and departure routines.
One key point will be the improvement of the Ceuta slope, where part of the rocky outcrop will be moved to widen the carriageway. The aim is to facilitate safer turns and avoid the bottlenecks that complicate the passage of vehicles and buses at this entrance to the neighbourhood.
The intervention will also gain space for pedestrians. At the entrance to Institut Escola Coves d’en Cimany, the pavement will be widened to ease passage for pupils and families, while on Carrer de Tirso the carriageway and pavement beside Escola Mare de Déu del Coll will be widened.
The changes will particularly affect school mobility. In an area with several educational centres nearby, mornings and afternoons concentrate a great deal of pressure into little space: children, accompanying adults, school buses, cars, motorbikes and residents moving through narrow streets.
During the works, pedestrian passage will be guaranteed and residents, school buses, cleaning services and emergency services will have access. General traffic will be diverted between Santuari and Font del Coll, and routes 87 and 129 will temporarily alter their route.
The work offers a clear reading of the Park Güell environment: tourism cannot be understood separately from the daily life of the neighbourhoods around it. Improving access, pavements and bus turns does not only organise arrival at a Barcelona icon; it can also ease very specific routines for people who live, study or work in the upper part of Coll. The renewal does not only seek to resolve a bottleneck beside Park Güell. It also fits into a wider strategy so that the park’s tourist impact leaves visible improvements in its immediate surroundings, especially in neighbourhoods such as Coll, Carmel and Teixonera, where daily mobility depends on narrow streets, slopes and heavily strained access points.