Salou. Costa Dorada. 21 June 2021.
Salou has an ambitious project to transform the municipality to make it friendlier, more sustainable and more accessible, and the spearhead of this project has already been put into practice on Carles Buïgas Avenue, one of the capital's main commercial hubs. from the Costa Dorada.
After a long pilot test to make this avenue pedestrian and several months of works, finally on June 18, 2021, the mayor of Salou, Pere Granados, has inaugurated the total remodeling of the avenue that has become a totally pedestrian, on a single level.
The work has had a budget of 2.8 million euros and has focused on 500 meters of the 1,200 that the avenue has in total. Specifically in the section that goes from the Fuente Luminosa and Andorra avenue to Murillo street, which is the section closest to the nerve center of Salou.
The new Carles Buïgas avenue plays with the geometry and various textures of the pavement, and provides more comfort to residents and visitors by installing up to 70 new benches to rest and the planting of 85 new trees of different colors, which in some cases are They are grouped together to create a “forest effect” that provides shade and a feeling of freshness.
Among the species that have been planted include silver linden, hackberry, purple bauhinia and red plum. Shrubs and aromatic plants have also been planted in the flowerbeds of the plaza at the entrance to the avenue from the Fuente Luminosa, such as sage, lavender and thyme.
In terms of lighting, the streetlights are of the LED type and offer a playful variety of colors (from blue to greenish, yellow, reddish, pink and lilac), which can be programmed and controlled with remote management equipment.
A bollard has also been installed, which works via bluetooth, so that residents of Avenida Carles Buïgas in Salou can access their garages and merchants can enter the street with vehicles authorized for loading and unloading and services.
The second phase of the pedestrianization of Carles Buïgas avenue will comprise between Murillo street and Torremolinos street, and will turn the entire road into a promenade that will connect the nerve center of Salou with the
Capellans beach area.During the inauguration, the mayor of Salou, Pere Granados, recalled that the transformation of Carles Buïgas avenue was born as a result of a process of citizen participation, so that the original project has incorporated various contributions made by the neighborhood, such as the channeling of rainwater to ensure that the system can absorb up to 5 cubic meters per second during heavy rainfall.
In his inaugural speech, the mayor also highlighted the transformative nature of this work for the municipality and spoke of other projects that are being worked on to continue in this line of pacifying mobility and making Salou a friendlier municipality. Specifically, the Salou City Council wants to transform Paseo Jaume I, Paseo Miramar and part of Avenida Barcelona.
Granados has also warned that these projects are subject to the execution of the Civic Axis, which is the transformation of the space currently occupied by the train tracks and that Adif has to begin to demate in 2022.
