Centro Caminable 2050 : propuesta de intervención urbana de las calles Mendiburo y Pedro Carbo desde el enfoque de calles compartidas.

Abstract

At the beginning of the A-2023 semester, the research group Observatorio Urbano y Territorial (OUT) raised the topic "Centro Caminable GYE-2050" to be considered as an integrative thesis project of urban design of the subject Integrated Design of the Faculty of Architecture and Design (FAD). The main objective of the project is the development, together with the students, of intervention proposals through the urban redesign of streets or strategic avenues in the center of Guayaquil that have the potential to contribute to the revitalization, repopulation and reactivation of neighborhoods from a sustainable mobility approach, especially promoting increased walkability and reduced use of motor vehicles. Based on this umbrella theme, the group formed by students Álvaro Mora and Jorge Polanco, and as tutor Ricardo Pozo, worked during semesters A-2023 and B-2023 on a proposal for street intervention in the north-eastern sector of central Guayaquil. Specifically, the old Barrio del Puente, today parish Carbo, was selected as the study area. Through an urban diagnosis of the neighborhood, the work focused on understanding the current problems that condition the possibility of this neighborhood providing an optimal quality of life to its inhabitants and causing its repopulation. General problems were identified that are repeated in several sectors of the center, such as: insecurity, saturation of trade, depopulation, deficit of families living in buildings, deficit of equipment and services for families, traffic congestion, hyperconcentration of administrative and banking equipment and services, underutilization of public spaces and buildings, among others. However, the main problem found in this sector is the poor quality of the streets as public spaces for pedestrians. That is, the streets of the center and the Barrio del Puente have undergone a progressive physical and functional transformation during the last 50 years that has been oriented to provide the greatest amount of surface for the circulation of motorized vehicles (causeway) and for commercial activity. While for pedestrians, cyclists, and vulnerable citizens such as people with disabilities, children, seniors and pregnant women, walkable surfaces such as sidewalks and crossings were decreasing in their width and surface. Mendiburo and Pedro Carbo were selected as streets to intervene. The selection criterion was based on the need to connect public spaces and public transport stations with high pedestrian influx. The analysis showed that these agglomeration spaces are distant and disconnected from each other. The stations of Metrovía de Boyacá (north-south), Jardines de Malecón (south-north), Las Peñas (south-north), Aerovía (3 Musketeers) and the public spaces Malecón 2000 and Calle Panamá, in addition to health facilities, education, culture, administrative and banking existing in the neighborhood, generate the agglomeration of users who mostly transport walking, but not find the possibility to travel and enjoy it. The urban redesign of Mendiburo and Pedro Carbo streets has as main element of the urban party the concept of shared streets. Unlike the pedestrianization of streets that requires a deep study of mobility and accessibility that argues, The concept of shared streets offers the possibility to rethink the functional distribution of surfaces between pedestrian and vehicle so that they can share it harmoniously and sustainably for the benefit of the most vulnerable citizens and active mobility.It is proven in several similar interventions in neighborhoods of cities around the world, that the design of shared streets improves the quality of life of the inhabitants of the neighborhood by the benefits that contribute to health by stimulating their use for walking and cycling, and at the same time contribute to reactivate the local economy by increasing sales in retail stores by the increase of visitors walkers and inhabitants who travel on foot and consume. The proposal of urban redesign of two streets of downtown Guayaquil presented in this dossier represents the sum of the effort of two students who, despite addressing for the first time a similar issue in their career, appropriate the theme and reapply new concepts and criteria of urban design that in urban planning and urban design of the city are not frequently executed. In particular, the project proposes a new type of urban regeneration of the center that connects and makes accessible public spaces and high-influx equipment for the revitalization of traditional neighborhoods of the center that died progressively when expelling their main defenders and users: families.