Barcelona bus route removed from map apps to tackle tourist overcrowding

While some places will go to any lengths to attract visitors, residents of La Salut neighbourhood in Barcelona are celebrating a move to wipe themselves off the map.

For years, residents had complained that they could not get home because the number 116 bus was always crammed with tourists visiting Antoni Gaudí’s Park Güell. The park is the city’s second most popular attraction after the Sagrada Familia basilica.

Now they have the bus to themselves after the city council arranged to have the route removed from Google and Apple maps.

“We laughed at the idea at first,” said César Sánchez, a local activist. “But we’re amazed that the measure has been so effective.”

Luz López, 75, told elDiario.es: “Before, the bus was so full even people with walking sticks couldn’t get on.”

Albert Batlle, the deputy mayor of security and coexistence on the city council, said that as well as improving mobility around Park Güell, “we needed to eliminate references to the 116 on the internet”.

Batlle declined to admit or deny that the council had asked for the route to be removed, while a Google spokesperson would only say they would not delete a bus route unless requested to do so by the council.

Sánchez, who has been campaigning for eight years for the council to address the problem, joked: “The next thing we need to do is to get the whole of Park Güell removed from Google Maps.”