Every major city has them: marginalized working class neighborhoods clinging to the edge of the suburbs. You’re just 20 minutes from the city center, but it could be light years away. No modern transit conveniences here—no subway, light rail—
just the occasional heavily subsidized bus doing the rounds.
Torre Baró is one such Barcelona neighborhood. Lying along a steep valley, it was hastily constructed to house the city’s expanding population in the ‘60s, with little thought for urban planning. Transport Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB), the City
Council’s transit agency, has kept a handful of local minibuses running, but torturous switchback streets and a haphazard layout made it impossible to connect the lines or provide full coverage. Wait times are long and residents at the top of the hill have no direct access to shops, services and transport links in the valley below.