Last month, my family and I visited the beautiful city of Barcelona, Spain. Neither my wife Dale nor my 17-year-old twins Matthew and Katharine had ever been to this lovely country. And since Barcelona sits on the western shore of the azure blue Mediterranean Sea, a week of sunny skies and 60-degree weather beckoned us to this area of Spain known as Catalunya.
The experiences were fantastic – outstanding medieval and contemporary architecture, innumerable and interesting museums and historic Holy Roman Empire sites, a football (soccer) game in the largest stadium in Europe, lively commerce at family owned butcher shops, bakeries and restaurants, and lastly, the transportation system.
As many of you who have visited abroad can attest, public transportation doesn’t command a prominent location in travel brochures. It is definitely a quality of life issue, however, for people throughout the world – as it is here. Barcelona has more than 4 million people. It is built upward, not outward. And, Barcelona has existed as a city a lot longer than Everett, Seattle or New York. But one only needs to observe the movement of people to fully appreciate the value of creating pedestrian and public-transit friendly cities. Let me share a few examples.
Renfe, the national passenger rail carrier, provides direct service from the Barcelona Airport into the heart of old Barcelona – the Placa de Catalunya. There, you can transfer to one of the city’s seven subway lines. For our first venture, we took the train from the airport to our hotel. And the train was packed with visitors and luggage – at 3:30 in the afternoon. Twenty minutes later, we arrived at our station two blocks from the hotel.
Back here in Puget Sound, Sound Transit is building its light rail line between downtown Seattle and SeaTac Airport. When that line is done in 2009, we will have an opportunity similar to the one Barcelona residents and visitors enjoy today.
In Barcelona, it’s more than just moving people around on roads and rail. The sidewalks are wide and the plazas are numerous. Of course, the older part of the city has streets that are only 8 feet wide, shared by vehicles and people. But the major streets have sidewalks with enough room for 10 people to pass each other side-by-side.
In combination with street-level retail, Barcelona naturally invites you to walk anywhere and everywhere. And we did – up and down the Ramblas, from our hotel to Gaudi’s unfinished Cathedral, up to the highest point in Barcelona – Tibidabo (after a train and tram ride) and to the many plazas with outdoor seating offered by restaurants. All this walking makes for a very lively and invigorating city experience – and very few out-of-shape people.
As we grow locally, we should remember the importance of building sidewalks and creating public spaces that allow people to walk – and sit.
Congestion in Barcelona is horrendous. At the same time, transit ridership is very high. I saw traffic jams every day, all day, even on a Sunday. Between all the cars (mostly two-door compacts) and scooters (which far outnumbered the cars), you would think that public transit wasn’t even provided as an option. One only needs to ride a bus or train – any day of the week, at any time of the day, and in any direction – to realize what traffic congestion would be like without public transit.
Most of the time when we traveled by public transit (the one-way fare is $1.50 U.S.), we stood because it was too crowded to sit. And the roads were still jammed with vehicles. So, when people say that public transit won’t alleviate congestion, they’re right. The converse is also true – more roads won’t relieve congestion either. But can you fathom what travel would be like if public transit did not exist? While it may not be for everyone, public transportation is effective in certain markets at certain times of day.
We in the Puget Sound region need to readjust our mindset about public transportation. All this walking and public transit use in Barcelona (as well as the rest of Europe) is not extraordinary. It did not require deliberation or analysis. It occurs without a second thought. It’s the way to circulate within the community.
In this region we struggle with the challenge of moving people and goods. We still can’t move past the transit vs. roads debate. However, if we want public transit to work for us, we need to help it be successful. Please think about the travel choices that you face on a daily basis and how those choices affect your own quality of life as well as other people living in our community. Issues such as funding, fares, travel time, frequency of service and land-use development can positively affect pedestrian-friendly growth.
Today, there are too many of us not to seriously consider public transportation’s importance to our community as we progress into the future.
Paul Kaftanski is the transportation services director for the City of Everett.
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