Carreteras – planeamiento. Algunas claves de la evolución histórica de una relación imperfecta

Coronado Tordesillas, José María; Garmendia Antín, Maddi · 2017 · Crossref

DOI: 10.24197/ciudades.11.2008.33-51

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Summary

This paper examines the historical evolution of the relationship between highway design and urban planning, characterizing it as an "imperfect relation" that has shifted from integrated territorial development to segregated engineering. The authors argue that while roads have always shaped territory, the advent of the automobile revolutionized their role, transforming accessibility into a primary driver of urban form and leading to a disconnect between road engineers and urban planners. The study traces this evolution through distinct historical phases. Initially, pre-automobile roads (such as Spain’s *Caminos Reales*) served long-distance travel but fostered linear development along their paths. The arrival of the railway in the 19th century subordinated roads to local service roles. With the rise of the automobile, early urbanists like Benton Mackaye proposed the "Townless Highway" to prevent ribbon development, while Hilarión González del Castillo envisioned "colonizing motorways" to integrate infrastructure with linear city planning. However, the dominance of the Modern Movement and traffic engineering led to the segregation of highways from urban fabric. Highways were designed exclusively by engineers for functional efficiency, often cutting through existing cities via aggressive expressways or converting boulevards into high-capacity streets, thereby fragmenting neighborhoods. The paper highlights that the automobile enabled dispersed, low-density urban growth, particularly in the US, where the Interstate Highway Act accelerated suburbanization and the construction of urban expressways that deteriorated inner-city areas. In Spain, the phenomenon of "road colonization"—uncontrolled building along road margins—prompted legislative responses, such as the 1952 law establishing minimum building setbacks. Despite these measures, the fundamental disconnect persisted. Currently, highways tend to bypass populated areas to avoid being engulfed by urban growth, while urban planners treat them as fixed boundaries or targets, effectively codifying engineering decisions into urban law. The significance of this analysis lies in its critique of the current planning paradigm, where the interdependence of mobility and land use (the "ways" and "intervías" concept described by Cerdá) has been lost. The authors conclude that the historical separation of highway design from urban planning has resulted in infrastructure that fails to integrate with territorial needs, creating barriers rather than connectors. The paper implies that future planning must re-establish a coordinated approach to avoid the negative social and spatial consequences of treating roads as isolated engineering objects.

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