Today is January 14, 2026 but, really, it doesn’t matter when you read this: Pere Navarro, director of the DGT, is once again in the news for some controversial statements.
We could have titled this article that way, in fact, because the truth is that every time the Director of Traffic speaks at an event broadcast by the media there is something to scratch. This time it was at an event organized by Europa Press where Navarro showed off this particular superpower. There, he has assured the following:
“We are all day with emissions, yes emissions, no such and such. Don’t look, you don’t go to the city center with electric, diesel or gasoline. Let’s not make a mistake. You go with public transportation and if you’re in a hurry, taxi, Uber or Cabify”
They are literal words. There is no possible misinterpretation or audio cuts to take the message out of context. You can check it yourself in the tweet that accompanies this article.
Click on the image to go to the original tweet
The words clearly point to an ambition: to get the car out of the city center. It doesn’t matter if it’s gasoline, diesel or electric. There is a goal and that goal is vehicle sharing and public transportation.
We could put our hands on our heads. We could say that they want to prohibit us from moving where the elites want. Of course, there will be those who relate this to 15 minute cities.
However, we have been hearing similar messages for so long and the measures to be taken have been so lukewarm that, without fear of being wrong, I say: calm down.
Once again, the same old thing
This is not the first time, far from it, that we have heard this type of message from the director of the DGT. For two years, news and articles have been recurring that point to supposed prohibitions on using our cars if they are only occupied by one person.
One of the most repeated formulas is found in these words from Navarro himself at an event called Global Mobility Call held in Madrid in 2024:
“The future of traffic will be shared or it will not be (…) we must make a collective change in mentality that allows us to encourage high vehicle occupancy, because we cannot afford to move 1,500 kg every day to move a single person. Increasing vehicle occupancy is a challenge and a necessity”
Navarro too has come to be described as “luxury” moving a single person in a vehicle. And in November he insisted again in that it doesn’t matter if the car is electric or not because the future of cities depends on public transport.
However, the DGT has not taken any action that points in this direction nor is there anything on the table to debate it. The closest thing is the creation of a Bus-HOV lane at the entrance to Madrid where cars with two or more people traveling inside are rewarded. And that in 2019 it was also advocated from the DGT magazine for a city “with more pedestrians and fewer cars.”
The statements have also been used to fill the network with articles pointing out that we will not be able to enter the center of our cities by car, linking them with the creation of low-emission zones. But the truth is that these low-emission zones have a very limited scope.
In some of them, such as Madrid or Barcelonavehicles without a label are prevented from entering, but either there are exceptions or they allow all cars with a label to enter the very center of the city. It is true that sometimes you are forced to park in a parking lot but the passage, if our car has at least label Bit is open.
Despite many statements by the DGT, the truth is that the efforts to reduce or not reduce traffic in cities go through the municipal corporations of each place. A context that has led to turning the issue of urban mobility into a political weapon. To the point of defending that traffic jams can be “a hallmark” of a city.
The comparison between Madrid and Barcelona are two good examples. In the capital, the Popular Party won an election by ensuring that it was going to lift all circulation restrictions, something he didn’t do and that, in fact, he maintained to eliminate all unmarked cars (regardless of whether the driver lives in Madrid or not) from the city.
Barcelona en Comú promoted a completely different way of understanding the city in Barcelona, betting on pedestrianization, reduction of lanes in the city center and the creation of what are known as Superilles. It has also been promoted to be more aggressive and fence off the entrance to the city from the most polluting vehicles.
Two different approaches that, however, have given a very similar result. And the measures against the car have been very lukewarm. In both cities, if the vehicle has an environmental label it can circulate inside, just taking into account a series of obligations that, in practice, barely change our daily lives. In Madrid, the idea of preventing unlabeled cars from being banned was finally scrapped (as long as they are registered in Madrid).
And prohibiting entry to city centers with cars is not something that is catching on in Europe either. Yes, the main cities have restrictions and barriers that discourage its use, but in all of them you can continue to travel to the city center by car. In London you want reduce traffic with tollsin Paris punishing street parking and in Berlin you are also forced to drive with certain modern vehicles.
Be that as it may, the only certainty is that total prohibitions do not come and if citizens end up leaving their cars aside in the cities it is because they have been transversal jobs in different areas and sustained over timewith investments in public transport, pedestrianization and decided commitments to bike lanes.
Photo | Jordi Moncasi and Europa Press
In Xataka | Tactical urbanism works. And Spain has one of the best examples in an unexpected city
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings