Just walking a few streets up or down is enough to come across the yellow color of construction fences. The total number of ongoing projects in Barcelona’s public space today is 293. Some are larger, others smaller, spread throughout the city.
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The figure is slightly lower than the 330 projects this newspaper counted last summer in an exhaustive tally of all ongoing works. The Barcelona City Council confirms the downward trend in the overall number and attributes it to the final phase of some of the main improvement works that have been underway for years.
This acceleration coincides, as usual, with the last year of the term. Exactly one year before the next municipal elections, Jaume Collboni’s government wants to resolve as many projects as possible. And, most importantly, reduce the impact on mobility and daily commutes caused to residents and all those who move around the area, whether on foot, by car, or by public transport.
The municipal government defends a balance between improving the city and guaranteeing the right to mobility
Last year, the works on Via Laietana were completed, and in March the Rovira tunnel was reopened in both directions, which had significantly altered mobility around this vital traffic artery in the city.
“We are lowering the curve of major city transformation works that we have underway,” defends the deputy mayor of Urbanism, Laia Bonet, who through the municipal works committee tries to find a balance between “the municipal government’s firm commitment to continue improving the city and building the necessary infrastructure while always making it compatible with the daily life and the right to mobility of all citizens.”
The Balmes and Meridiana renovations will finish this year; the Rambla, Glòries, and Ronda de Dalt throughout 2027
In the short term, this summer, the works on Balmes street, between Plaza Molina and Ronda General Mitre, will be completed, which involve widening the sidewalks and, therefore, the loss of one downhill lane for private vehicles in favor of pedestrians.
In autumn, the works on Meridiana will also conclude, extending its model with renovated sidewalks and a bike lane in the center of the roadway from Felip II to Fabra i Puig. Thus, the former urban highway, which even required bridges to cross it, will have a much more pleasant space from Glòries to the final stretch of Meridiana, the most difficult to tackle and whose debate is left for the next term.
This 2026 will also see the completion of the Vila i Vilà collector works in Poble Sec, an underground infrastructure essential to end flooding in the lower part of Paral·lel during heavy rains and which also includes an improvement of the street. Within the Endreça plan framework, there are also small lighting works spread across all city districts executed here and there in a few weeks.
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Next year, the Rambla remodeling is expected to be completed. One of the first decisions the socialists made upon taking office was to commission the municipal company Bimsa to find a way to tighten the schedule and the different planned phases. The new planning arrangement aims to finish the transformation of the emblematic promenade by early 2027, three years earlier than announced when they started and with enough margin for citizens to go to the polls with the works already completed.
There are projects like covering a small stretch of Ronda de Dalt that drag on over time
Also next year, during spring, the works in the Glòries area will finish, including the construction of a collector on Badajoz street, the definitive reurbanization of the public space gained on Gran Via after the opening of the Glòries tunnel, and the doubling and construction of a new and controversial tram route through Ciutat de Granada to free the square from tracks and group them all on the Diagonal side.
After the elections, at the end of 2027, the completion of the coverage of Ronda de Dalt between Vallcarca Avenue and the Vall d’Hebron institute remains, a work that visibly advances only in summer and at night, which results in extremely slow progress in exchange for reducing the impact on traffic on a road that cannot be closed without completely strangling traffic in Barcelona.
The closures at various points on Urgell street where the L8 stations are being built end at the end of the year
All the aforementioned works are municipal and directed by the City Council, but Barcelona also suffers significant disruptions in its streets due to works carried out by the Generalitat. These correspond to major infrastructures such as the construction of the never-ending metro line 9 (noticeable at the future Manuel Girona, Mandri, and Ronda del Guinardó stations), as well as the extension of the L8 of Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC), with several important points on the future route between Plaza Espanya and Gràcia.
The end of this year is a marked date to reduce the impact of several points involved in these works. Notable among them are those on Urgell street, which is closed between Francesc Macià and Buenos Aires and at the height of Clínic hospital, on Rosselló street, for the construction of the future L8 stations. Before 2027 begins, the goal is to partially reopen traffic at these points.
In Muntaner, where an emergency exit for the same line is being built, a little more waiting is still necessary. The same goes for the area around Plaza Espanya and Gran Via, where these days the large tunnel boring machine that must cross the Eixample starting this summer is being assembled.
While the works last, until the end of the decade, this entry artery to Barcelona will be maintained with fewer lanes and a notable alteration of the old normality in Plaza Espanya and the surrounding streets.
