Work to connect the Vallès and Llobregat-Anoia local FGC train lines, promoted by the Catalan government’s Ministry for Territory, Housing and Ecological Transition, move into a new stage with the start of construction work on the future stations of Hospital Clínic and Francesc Macià. The work should take around 12 months and entails the installation of some shallow work screens, occupying the whole road surface in two sections of C/ Comte Urgell from the middle of January.

• Area of the Hospital Clínic station: construction work on the shaft for the Hospital Clínic station will take up the whole road surface in C/ Comte d’Urgell, between the streets of Rosselló and Còrsega, from the night of 19 January.
• Area of the Francesc Macià station: construction work will take up the whole road surface in C/ Comte Urgell, between Pl. Francesc Macià and C/ Buenos Aires, from the morning of 23 February.

The Ministry for Territory, Housing and Ecological Transition will apply a series of measures to minimise the impact of the work for nearby buildings, including the installation of noise protection panels three metres high and another six metres high around the machine executing the screens.

Disruptions to traffic

The traffic closures in C/ Comte Urgell will mean diversions to bus services and significant disruptions to traffic. Bus users are advised to find out about changes to bus-stops and drivers of private vehicles are advised to avoid circulating in this area as far as possible.

Work on the Hospital Clínic station will mean closing C/ Comte Urgell to traffic in the direction of the mountains, between Rosselló and Còrsega, affecting 30,000 vehicles that use the road as an outbound route. As an alternative, the traffic direction in  Rosselló will be reversed between Urgell and Calàbria, so that all vehicles reaching Urgell in the works zone will turn left towards Rosselló, from there being able to take Entença as far as Av. Diagonal.

As for the traffic closure in C/ Comte d’Urgell, between Francesc Macià and Buenos Aires in the direction of the sea, this should affect an estimated 18,000 vehicles using the road as an inbound route into the city. In an effort to reduce the volume of vehicles reaching Pl. Francesc Macià, the central road surface of Av. Diagonal at the junction with C/ Numància, will have just one lane available to go straight on towards Av. Diagonal, with two lanes obliging vehicles to turn towards C/ Numància. At the same time, the central section of Av. Diagonal will have just one operative traffic lane as far as Pl. Francesc Macià.

In the road on the Besòs side of Av. Taradellas a two-way section will be enabled between C/ Comte Borrell and Pl. Francesc Macià, creating a new road access from Francesc Macià towards Comte Borrell to connect the road network in L’Eixample via C/ Buenos Aires.

Connection with the L8 to improve mobility

In parallel to these areas, work is also in progress on: the future emergency exits for C/ Consell de Cent; the tunnelling shaft in the area of Gran Via between C/ Llança and C/ Vilamarí; the future logistics zone of the Parc de Joan Miró, and the civil engineering work around the Gràcia station.

The work to extend the Llobregat-Anoia FGC line and its connection with the Vallès area includes the construction of a tunnel four kilometres long with a tunnelling machine and three new stations: Hospital Clínic (interchange with L5), Francesc Macià (interchange with the tram system) and Gràcia (FGC). In addition, the current station of Plaça Espanya and Gràcia are to be remodelled. The work involves an investment of 412 million euros and is expected to benefit 19.5 million new users.