The reforms to the Borne and Antoni Maura will be finished in December

Joan Collins THE city council has presented its final plans for the remodelling of the Borne and the Avinguda Antoni Maura, where an underground car park is being built. The remodelling of the Borne will be started at the end of February and will be finished in December. The total budgeted cost of the work is 2.8 million euros. As for the reforms to Antoni Maura, which will cost three million euros, they will also start in the next few weeks and finish in November. This will coincide with the end of the construction of an underground car park in this road. At the presentation were Javier Rodrigo de Santos, deputy Mayor in the City Hall Town Planning department; Alvaro Gijon, deputy Mayor in the Town Security department; Marina Sans, deputy Mayor of the Infrastructures department; and Carlos Veramendi, head of the Traffic department. De Santos said that with this project the city council wanted to “reform the most emblematic open space in the centre of the city, preserving all its historical elements and heritage”. He also said that the work in the Borne and Antoni Maura will be “in keeping with the city”, with the objective of securing a “harmonious aspect” which in the future could be extended to the planned reform of Moll Vell (old quay) by the Port Authority. For this reason, the council wants a walkway to be created in the place where, decades ago, the Passeig de la Riba was situated. Sans said that first a new pavement would be laid in the Plaza Rey Juan Carlos, the Borne, the Plaza de la Reina and Antoni Maura, which will be similar to the one in the Calle Constitutio. In fact, the pavements will be of limestone and the roads will be constructed of flagstones. Then the pavements of the central area of the Borne will be changed. These will also be of limestone but the design has yet to be decided. Also, the pavements in the Plaza de la Reina, Rey Juan Carlos and Calles Estanc and Pintor Guillem Mesquida will be widened. There will be more public lighting added to the Plaza de la Reina, and the ornamental fountains would be renovated. Gijon, for his part, said that the project for the improvements to Antoni Maura “has tried to give priority to pedestrians but without being prejudiced against cars”. He said that the pavement where restaurants had tables and chairs outside will be idened by 7.5 metres, while the pavement next to the Jardins de s'Hort de Rei will be widened by 1 metre. After the reforms, Antoni Maura will have an entry lane on the carriageway towards the centre of the town, so that motorists can access Conquistador and Jaime III, and an exit lane to access the Passeo Maritimo or the Levante motorway. At the same time, the taxi rank will return to its usual place next to the s'Hort del Rei, the tourist bus will return to its usual stop, and the place for the horse-drawn carriages will move to the side of the Marine Command Post and the Customs Administration buildings. The lamp posts which were in the centre of the road will remain in the same place. Veramendi said that the widened road in es Born will take traffic in both directions, while the narrow part will continue to be closed to traffic, except for the section which connects Constitucion to the Plaza de la Reina.