The Electoral Effects of Banning Cars from the Streets: Evidence from Barcelona

• In Event: Urban Contestation and Collaboration: Space, Resources, and Networks

Abstract

While diminishing the presence of cars on streets is generally supported by residents, the implementation of specific projects often encounters resistance. The political backlash generated by these initiatives may prompt city governments to retract projects due to fears of potential electoral repercussions.
Is this fear justified? To address this inquiry, we study the case of Barcelona's superblocks. These are sets of city blocks or street sections which involve a radical reduction of motor traffic, prioritizing pedestrians. We use precinct level data to examine the impact of these interventions on the change in the vote for the mayor.
Making use of granular data on the building layout of the city, we compute the share of voters in each precinct that live close to one of these interventions. Also, using the knowledge about the traffic direction of each street, we compute the share of voters located close to a street section that is expected to absorb the car traffic diverted from the superblock. We embed these two treatments in a generalized difference-in-differences approach.
We find that the vote for the mayor increases the more voters live close to the interventions and that this impact is smaller in precincts with a high share of renters (who fear a spike in rents) and a high level of car ownership. We also find that the vote for the mayor decreases in precincts where many voters live close to where traffic is diverted, although this effect is temporary.

Author

• Albert Solé-Ollé, University of Barcelona