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Superblocks (Superilla) Barcelona
Barcelona, Spain
Overview
Barcelona's Superblocks prioritize people over cars by reclaiming urban space for community, sustainability, and biodiversity. These 400×400 m zones reduce car use, promote walking, cycling, and public transit, and aim to transform 503 areas citywide.
Active Period
1993 - present
Description
The superblocks: a) Prioritize people over cars with a focus on accessibility, and b) ‘Superblocks’ are 400 x 400 meters - bigger than a block, yet smaller than a whole neighborhood. Through the concept, the city aims to recover space for the community, improve biodiversity, move towards sustainable mobility, and encourage social cohesion.
Barcelona introduced the Superilles–a government-funded project identifying 120 intersections to be converted, in the 2013 - 2018 Urban Mobility Plan of Barcelona. The motive was to reduce vehicular pollution and move towards sustainable mobility. As a result, the council is now looking at transforming one in three streets in L’Eixample district- the part of the city designed by Cerdà. Beginning in 2022, moving from east to west, the urban designers want to remodel 21 streets by 2030. The 2024 Urban Mobility Plan only fuels the city’s vision of creating 503 superblocks throughout the city in the future.
Outstanding Features
‘Superblocks’ initiative goes hand in hand with redefining mobility. The 2024 Urban Mobility Plan focuses on transforming the mobility patterns in Barcelona. The aim is to reduce private vehicle journeys from 26.04% to 18.48%. Another target is to have 81.54% of all journeys on foot, bicycle, and public transport journeys by 2024. The council listed 300 specific measures for the coming years, including but not limited to adding 32km of pedestrian-only streets, expanding the bike network by 40%, adding a 30km/hr lane on roads with three or more lanes, etc.