Several dozen vehicles took part this Monday in a slow march to repair the Estrada Nacional 261 (EN261) in Melides, municipality of Grandola (Setúbal), in a protest that forced traffic changes, GNR reported.
The protest, organized by the Basta 261 Movement, with a rally next to EN261 followed by a slow march, temporarily caused alternating traffic on the access road to the neighboring municipality of Santiago do Cacem.
During the meeting, which was “attended by about 50 people,” the road “was never blocked and traffic flowed alternately,” a source from the PPR detachment in Grandola told Lusa.
According to the same source, the protest “started at 7:30 am and ended at 10:50 am” after a slow march in which “about 30 vehicles were mobilized to the Cascalheira area” in the municipality of Santiago do Cacem.
Lusa was also contacted by Bruno Matheus, president of the Melides parish council and one of the members of the movement, which also brings together local residents, who said he was pleased with the “large turnout of the population” for the protest.
The official said protesters blocked the road “completely” for “about 10 minutes” but the PNP’s intervention made it impossible for this form of protest to continue.
“We managed to reach mutual understanding, and we have a way to go [cortada] for an hour,” that is, along one of two lanes, he explained.
Bruno Matheus provided different figures from those given by GNR regarding the number of vehicles participating in this initiative.
“About 100 vehicles were counted,” he said, noting that protesters drove along the national road “to the end of Melides parish” and went in the opposite direction.
According to Bruno Matheus, this was “a cry of protest from the population as the state of degradation” of EN261 “increases.”
And it came only after “one or two years of complaints from the parish council, the town council and the public about the repair of this road”, he said.
This situation, he emphasized, “causes inconvenience to the population,” who complain “about damage to vehicles” that travel along this road every day.
Despite “this cry of warning and the protest of the population, we will continue to submit complaints” to the Infraestruturas de Portugal, he promised.