The nonsense of the Riera Blanca, the street that divides l’Hospitalet and Barcelona, where crossing the crosswalk means changing the healthcare environment, has its days numbered. The Generalitat, which a few weeks ago established the division of the metropolitan region in three areas, has reversed and will unify the entire metropolitan environment and the Catalan capital in a single health region starting next Monday.
The pressure of the metropolitan mayors, the own evidence of the daily life in an urban continuum in which it is impossible to put borders and a report prepared by Isglobal have convinced the Govern to give the green light to the sanitary reunification of the metropolitan region, which will mean the isolation of the city of Barcelona in its municipal terms and will recognize the possibility of moving with its real area of influence. The official justification of the technical committee of the Procicat is that in all three areas there is “a epidemiological evolution similar “and that the reunification will allow” fluffing the high density “.
One street, two cities
The compact urban continuum between Barcelona and l’Hospitalet makes the norm impossible
Even so, until next Monday, June 1, the confinement of Barcelona will remain, which produces gruesome scenes such as that of Roberto yesterday morning, who was leaving the Santa Eulàlia metro station, in l’Hospitalet, and one could not believe that he was changing his sanitary region when crossing the zebra crossing. “You will tell me what difference there is between one sidewalk and the other, if it is the same street!” He exclaimed upon learning of the official separation: on one side, l’Hospitalet, southern metropolitan area; on the other, Barcelona, a unique and exclusive consortium of the Catalan capital. According to the Generalitat, those citizens who cross the sidewalk for a reason that is not essential are not complying with the regulations. “I am going to take care of my sister’s children, who have to go back to work in a restaurant today, but my company maintains the ERTE and I have nothing to do”, justified Roberto, without haste. Most of those who entered and exited the subway were rushed workers.
More relaxed walkers were on the Rambla de Sants, the coverage of the tracks that precisely ends abruptly when reaching the limit with L’Hospitalet. Neighbors on both sides of the border, of very different ages, shared the main relatively green area in the area at midmorning. There was no control of any kind. Neither the Mossos d’Esquadra nor the Guardia Urbana were in charge of verifying the need for movements between the two health regions.
No need to do. Everyday life is imposed on invisible administrative borders where the residents of Barcelona cross to buy the newspaper at the kiosk on the Hospitalet side, while those in the second city of Catalonia cross the health region to go For example, to the pharmacy that is on the corner of the capital.
Preventive plan
TMB deploys 300 workers to avoid crowds at the main stations
The situation on the invisible border will continue until Monday in this difficult legal limitation that is also reproduced in other places and is especially porous in public transport. Aboard line 1, without going any further, it is possible to travel from l’Hospitalet to Santa Coloma de Gramanet, northern metropolitan area, the third subdivision of the Barcelona conurbation. An overcoming of the administrative limit of Barcelona that can also be carried out on other lines such as 5 to Cornellà, 9 to El Prat, Trambaix to Sant Feliu … or with the Rodalies or Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC) trains. ), that next to the subway and buses have continued to operate each and every day, even during those hard times when the streets were deserted. Getting on any of these options is easy to change your health region, both now and at the beginning of the confinement.
During the first day of Barcelona and its metropolitan area – still separately – in phase 1 of the de-escalation, public transport recorded an increase in the number of passengers, although it was still easy to keep the safety distance. Validations in the metro grew 13% compared to last Monday, but it is still almost two thirds below the volume of commuters on any given start of the week before the coronavirus appeared.
To heal in health, Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) yesterday deployed a special device with more than 300 workers who will manage the possible agglomerations that may occasionally occur on the platforms and lobbies of the most frequented stations. They are also responsible for ensuring compliance with the mandatory nature of the mask, a question widely followed.
Public transport operators insist on the need to stagger the hours of entry to the jobs to avoid that in the next few weeks there will be images of crowds in rush hour. To facilitate planning in this regard, since yesterday TMB has shown on its website and mobile application the indicators of estimated occupation in each line by time bands according to the information collected during the previous days. FGC also offers similar information on the Vallès line through real-time train load data.
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