Cities and their surroundings face problems such as pollution, lack of access to housing, and ensuring social cohesion. At the same time, cities like Barcelona are determined to contribute to solving these problems, and a key element is mobility. In this context, the railway represents an opportunity for cities and their integration, as well as for combating climate change by decarbonizing the movement of both people and goods.
This was confirmed by experts at the conference Railway, cities and environment, organized by The New Barcelona Post with the collaboration of Renfe and the Fundació Catalunya Europa. Held at the emblematic Estació de França, the conference focused on the opportunities that the railway offers to cities, with experts in this field from various angles.
Divided into two round tables, the conference featured consultant and Harmon partner Pau Solanilla; the director of the Fundació Catalunya Europa, Dolors Camats; engineer Manuel Gómez Acosta; the spokesperson for the Platform for Public Transport (PTP), Daniel Pi; researcher Jordi Solé; doctor in Biological Sciences Mercè Rius, popularizer José Luis Gallego and journalist Cristina Buesa. In a conference moderated by the head of communication of the Fundació Catalunya Europa, Mar Redondo, all of them reflected on the opportunities and challenges of the railway, and agreed on its role both in combating climate change and in articulating cities.
Solanilla defended in the first panel that "cities must be built on the trinomial of competitiveness, sustainability and equity, and the railway can help to marry these elements and reconcile them in cities." The former City Promotion Commissioner of the City Council also highlighted that the railway and the Metro are crucial to address the difficulties of access to housing, since "they articulate the territory."
In addition to its cohesive role, "the railway is a vector of sustainable mobility," Acosta defended. The Renfe Engineering and Maintenance board member praised the importance of Rodalies as a metropolitan railway and highlighted the importance of taking its workers into account when addressing the transfer between the central government and the Generalitat, something Cristina Buesa shared: "Workers are a key piece, as are infrastructures, facilities, and rolling stock."
The journalist defended that, with an adequate offer, citizens opt for public transport: "If you offer people reliable and accessible public transport, you have a sure alliance with better, more integrated, and less polluted cities." Despite being clear that the railway helps to advance in this direction, Camats warned that "we are not doing it fast enough or well enough."
The director of the Fundació Catalunya Europa has advocated for promoting citizen participation, and also that of cities in global debates. In this regard, Camats recalled the approach of former Generalitat president Pasqual Maragall, promoter of her foundation: "Cities should not only manage their local space, but should be global actors."
In the second round table, the doctor in Biological Sciences Mercè Rius placed the railway as a great ally to combat climate change, and called for more investment in this area. But, just as the railway is an ally in this fight, climate change represents a risk for the railway, since the climate can affect and harm railway infrastructures and their service.
"Cities should not only manage their local space, but should be global actors"Floods, wind, drastic temperature changes, or constant heat represent a risk, as Jordi Solé highlighted. The researcher predicted that "extreme events will become increasingly frequent," and advocated forbuild infrastructure and a resilient networkin scenarios that will be environmentally worse than the current ones.
The experts have agreed that this diagnosis is clear and largely shared by institutions, but that progress in this direction is not happening fast enough. "Why are we not moving towards mobility more based on trains?" asked the PTP spokesperson, who pointed to the area of funding, among others.
The popularizer José Luis Gallego also focused on this delay in moving towards more environmentally friendly modes of transport. In a context where "mobility represents 25% of greenhouse gas emissions," he called for more transversal environmental policies that affect transport.
Experts have debated the role of railways in cities, not only from the point of view of connectivity, but also from the point of view of their physical integration: should tracks run through the urban fabric, or should they be buried? While Solanilla has argued that burying is generally unfeasible, other experts have defended that it is important to do so in some municipalities, and Camats has proposed opening a mature debate with citizens. Tokyo, Berlin, and Zurich are some of the cities where the train is embedded as another element of their urban fabric, as Pi highlighted.
The commitment to the train, also at night
Several experts have gone further in their defense of the railway, and have advocated for promoting and recovering night connections, as Solanilla and Camats highlighted. Pi and Gallego have also done so, with Gallego recalling the proposal to connect the Catalan capital with Amsterdam with a night train, which was planned for 2025 but is now delayed by at least a year.
These initiatives are part of the conviction that the railway is called to play a leading role in the decarbonization of mobility and in the articulation of cities and their metropolitan areas, a process in which a momentum that is already taking shape is required.