The public transport of Barcelona wants to heal in health. To avoid possible crowds at rush hour, it has been decided to increase the step frequency to levels that are already close to what was offered in normal conditions, although the number of travelers is still well below. During this week it has been around 20% of what was usual before the coronavirus.
Starting tomorrow, coinciding with the entry of the Catalan capital and its metropolitan area in phase 1, the metro will run at 92% at rush hour, with special reinforcement on lines 1 and 5, where it will reach 97% to avoid unwanted accumulations in the two lines with the highest volume of users. During the rest of the day, a service will be offered at 83% of the usual in the whole of the Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) metro network. As for urban buses, the average circulation will be 70%, with increases of up to 80% in some lines of the orthogonal network at rush hour.
The increase in the supply of TMB is at the limit of its current possibilities, taking into account that there is a part of the staff that was sent home from the first day with a permit paid by health recommendation to have various previous pathologies.
Special reinforcement during rush hour, which continues without measures to reduce pressure
The increase in the number of trains in circulation will also be noticed in Rodalies, which will reach 94%. For its part, Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC) will fully recover the offer in rush hour and 80% during the rest of the day. The tram will have the same percentages, reaching 100% on the Trambaix lines at rush hour. Intercity buses in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) and the Generalitat will circulate at 80% on average and the NitBus will keep its frequency cut in half.
Despite entering phase 1, public transport operators insist that its use should be avoided as much as possible during rush hour, especially between seven and nine in the morning. Although they have asked for active and passive measures that dilute the rush hour and stagger the entry to jobs, at the moment the administrations have not carried out any action in this regard.
Reactivation of the parking meters with higher prices
If public transport is 20% of what was usual before, in the case of mobility by private car it is already around half. Drivers will also find news from tomorrow: the blue and green area, which has been free since the alarm status decree, is paid again. And also, as it advanced The vanguard
, it does so with the new rates approved at the beginning of the year and which had not yet entered into force.
Drivers will pay between 0.75 and 1.25 euros more per hour, depending on the environmental label that the car has, since the new variable price system aims to penalize the most polluting vehicles and incentivize zero-emission vehicles. For this, it will be essential to enter the registration number when paying in the parking meter or in the mobile application.
On the other hand, the activation of the new rates also ends with the gratuitousness between two and four in the afternoon and incorporates the payment of one euro per week for all those residents who keep their car parked in the green zone.
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