Barcelona asks Madrid to name the La Sagrera station after Pasqual Maragall

The proposal

Barcelona City Council wants the future La Sagrera station to carry the name of Pasqual Maragall, a former mayor of Barcelona and former president of the Generalitat. Mayor Jaume Collboni announced the proposal on Tuesday, 27 October, in an interview with Catalunya Ràdio, framing it as recognition of Maragall's long-term vision for the city. Collboni said Maragall understood early that rail would define the future of public transport, and he described La Sagrera as a station of stations expected to open in 2032. He put the tribute in personal terms:

“He was the mayor who dreamed of this station.”

El País noted that the request is unusual, because such tributes are rarely paid to living figures, and Maragall is still alive.

Request to the Transport Ministry

The proposal is directed at the Ministry of Transport, led by Óscar Puente. ABC reports that city sources confirmed the petition has already been formally passed to the ministry. According to Collboni, Maragall's family was told beforehand and welcomed the idea, as La Vanguardia reports. Ministry sources told elDiario.es that administrative procedures still have to be completed, but they do not see a problem with the name.

Works and timeline

Construction at La Sagrera has run for about fifteen years, elDiario.es reports, and La Vanguardia says the works have passed 70% of overall execution. Rodalies and high-speed trains already run through the station on their final alignments, although they do not stop there yet. On Thursday, 22 October, Óscar Puente and Salvador Illa visited the site, where the eight high-speed tracks are in testing, El País reports. The city is working on a revision of the PGM modification, which it aims to bring to approval this December, and the reparcelling of Prim and La Mercedes is already approved. Railway construction is scheduled for 2027 and the passenger building for 2032, while Adif is not setting a definitive opening date after repeated delays since the project started in 2010.

Urban project and passenger forecast

The city is pushing an urban transformation of the land around the station, with municipal investment of 260 million euros planned until 2031. El País reports plans for about 11,000 homes, new facilities and a large park meant to reconnect neighbourhoods long split by the tracks. elDiario.es expects the station to handle 100 million passengers a year across high-speed, Rodalies, metro and urban and interurban buses. Alongside Atocha in Madrid, it is expected to be the busiest station in Spain, the paper says.

Disturbances and public order

Asked whether he feared a repeat of the disturbances on Saturday, 24 October, Collboni said the city council trusts the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Guardia Urbana. He called for a return to normality and asked residents to celebrate Halloween and the Castanyada as planned, shopping in the city centre and dressing up. He also urged people to heed police warnings and recommendations when they are issued, putting safety first. The remarks came in the same interview as the naming proposal.

Pasqual Maragall

Maragall, 85, has lived with Alzheimer's disease for about two decades, a diagnosis he made public in October 2007, ABC reports. He was mayor of Barcelona from 1982 to 1997, a period that included the 1992 Olympic Games, and later led the Generalitat in the first tripartite government of 2003 to 2006, El Mundo reports. His family says he now lives quietly, away from public activity. His daughter Cristina Maragall chairs the Pasqual Maragall Foundation, which he set up in 2008 to support Alzheimer's research and prevention.