The Ring Roads - Las Rondes

Those who, as I did, started driving in the 90s can not imagine Barcelona without the Rondes, the ringway that goes around the city. These two ring roads were built, like so many other things, for the 1992 Olympic Games. They are over 35 kilometers long and the two big junctions at both ends help distribute the traffic moving through Barcelona and its metropolitan area.

As a regular user of the Ronda del Litoral I know perfectly its limitations. I know they have been criticized for the number of accidents in it and because they don't contribute to promote sustainable transport. I also know that there are many miles without a shoulder, that entrance ramps are often short and dangerous and traffic jams are very common in some sections. By the way, those traffic jams can be really exasperating when there a vehicle breaks down and stops occupying a whole lane.

I do not even want to imagine the city traffic if all this amount of vehicles that circulate now along the Rondes had to drive through the center of Barcelona!

Connection L3-L4 Passeig de Gràcia

Some connections between lines in the Barcelona Metro network are virtually instantaneous, some others are quite short, some are long, and then we have, in a category of its own, the one in Passeig de Gràcia. I do not know what you do, but I avoid it whenever I can. I prefer not to walk the equivalent of three blocks of the Eixample on a narrow tunnel..

Perhaps you don't know that the tunnel where we walk nowadays to connect between lines takes up part of an underground car park, which is actually behind just a wall of separation. Specifically, we walk along its second basement. If we could get through the car park, the connection would be a little shorter, but the parking was inaugurated in 1967, before the construction of L4, and the best solution they found was going along ots edge.

In order to reduce the distance the existing underground halls would have to be modified, and some new entrances would have to be done, in addition to a new corridor, that would go below the parking lot. Due to its cost you can imagine that this project is waiting for better times.

I think we'll still have a long connection distance for a few years.

Barcelona Television

Is there anything more "Barcelonian" than a TV Channel like BTV?
Who hasn't been tempted to talk in front of the cameras of Videomaton?
Who doesn't remember the fish tank they used as the test pattern? And the eye they had as a logotype?
And what about emblematic shows as Telemonegal, el Temps del Picó or the literary Qwerty?
BTV is turning 18, and by the way...someone working there, Albert Muñoz, contacted me some time ago and told me they wanted to prepare a little note for BTV's web about this blog. So here you have the video. It is always a bit embarrassing to see and hear oneself, but that's life, I guess...

http://www.btv.cat/btvnoticies/2012/09/16/blog-barcelonins-coses-barcelona-aitor-aretxaga/