PS accuses Moedas of ‘covering up’ cycling network audit and criticizes plan

PS/Lisbon accused the President of the Chamber, Carlos Moedas (PSD), of “covering up” the inspection that he carried out on the capital’s bicycle network and which formed the basis of the plan presented this Thursday by the municipality.

“Nine months after the vice-president of the Lisbon City Council learned of the results of an audit of the city’s bicycle network and several times refused to disseminate the study to councilors, he presented some of this information in a separate and decontextualized form for a press conference today,” criticizes PS advice in a note sent to the Lusa agency.

We are talking about Lisbon’s municipal cycling plan, presented this morning by Vice-President Filipe Anacoreta Correia and based on an audit of the city’s network carried out by Copenhagenize, whose interim report was already published in October.

“This is the first time that the Lisbon City Council has not published a technical report, but rather a summary of the analysis carried out and verified by the services, in a climate of secrecy and opacity that sets the policy of transparency back several decades. and the accountability that is required of a public body,” accuse the Socialists, who already in April requested access to the audit from the Commission on Access to Administrative Documents (CADA).

According to the unveiled plan, Lisbon will move from its current 173 kilometers of cycling network to 263 kilometers at the end of 2025, with a further 56 connecting cycle paths planned to be built to “improve and enhance connectivity”. the infrastructure has already been built in the city.”

There are also Gira bicycle stations, of which there are currently 150, and by the end of 2025 there will be 190, with 1,900 bicycles, of which 1,800 are electric, and they will cover 24 parishes.

The plan also includes two million euros to connect schools to the cycling network, in addition to the 400 thousand euros that the municipality received in financial support from Bloomberg’s BICI program to connect cycle paths to 20 schools, covering 20 thousand students.

In total, about 13 million euros are expected to be invested in the implementation of this plan.

For PS, the plan to expand the cycling network shows a “lack of ambition” and an outdated vision: “None of the suggestions from what is known from the audit are being implemented, and with almost half of the announced kilometers being at Monsanto, it is a return to a model where cycling the network is seen not as an element of mobility, but as an element of leisure.”

The party highlights “security failures” and criticizes the executive leadership for abandoning several projects.

“PS councilors cannot help but point out the mistake of not building cycle paths in important transport hubs such as Avenida de Roma, which will ensure smooth connections from Lumiara to the city center, or Avenida da Igreja and Gago Coutinho. “, they note.

Livre/Lisbon also criticized the capital’s cycling network plan, deeming it “clearly insufficient to achieve environmental goals and targets.”

The party, which has an elected executive director, has questioned several options, saying, for example, that “the largest areas proposed and added to the plan since October correspond to bike lanes or trails that already exist at Monsanto, in places where cars are not allowed.” pass, and therefore there is no urgent need to improve the security of the existing network.”

In this sense, Livre questions the implementation of the audit, since it understands that it is not responding to the problems identified. “Nearly three years have been wasted stopping, delaying or canceling planned work on cycle lanes while awaiting this review,” he criticizes.

According to the data published as a result of the audit, Avenida Almirante Reis, Avenida 24 de Julho and Rua Prof. Pinto Peixoto (in Beato) are the roads with the most safety problems.

The analysis found serious shortcomings in the city’s cycling network, including 30 problematic intersections, numerous broken bike lanes and disruptions to 121 schools and five universities.

A survey of users found that two thirds feel unsafe or very unsafe at intersections, the majority consider the Lisbon network to be intermittent, the majority believe that protection from car traffic is insufficient, and that there are still many places inaccessible by bicycle, namely Gira stations. .

Overall the network performs well for the metro and trains, but there is room for improvement, the audit found.