The Chamber of 15 minutes
“It’s time to go into emergency mode” wrote António Guterres in a message, known this Monday at a conference organized in Lisbon, about the need to reduce carbon dioxide. The UN Secretary-General is predicted that the United Nations has extended the decade and called for “a breakdown of action”.
The news that it does not refer to the mayor of the capital was present at the Clube de Lisboa conference, where the message was heard, but it would be interesting to know, after four months in office, what he has to say on the matter – that there is no known plan in this direction.
In fact, I lie: the well-known electoral plans, announced in its program and from which there is no news of having given up, shamelessly go in the direction of contributing to the greater use of individual transport: Cut parking for residents to half the price, even making it free for the first 20 minutes, and fill the city with car silos. All measures that encourage car circulation, as well as the acquisition of just them (parking is an obvious incentive).
Furthermore, it became clear half a dozen days ago, in a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce, one of its main objectives is, as if we were in the nineties of the past, to drain the city’s traffic” – namely in which its predecessor had planned in the center of the future situation of the borders of a zone of the near future ” ZER). I am referring to Avenida Almirante Reis, whose bike lane was, as is well known, one of the themes of the campaign of the Social Democrat, who promised with it, and who now declares that he intends to return to having all four lanes of traffic stop cars, another bike path.
because, he explains, “the main problem is to drain the traffic that leaves Lisbon”. The main problem, it should be noted, is not the greater eternity – that in the level of threat greater than the planet and the confrontation -, the level of the world of actuality Lisbon nor the fact in fact is demonstrably a city that for decades was thought in terms of of the automobile and in which public vehicles circulate more – and the more cars circulate, it is known, the more “drainage” there is.
What did the campaign say about the city “15 minutes” – the one in which someone needs to get, within a radius corresponding to that time of walking/course of public transport, everything that will be presented that public transport, seems concerned to present solutions not only for those who live there and travel by car, but also for those who enter and leave this means of transport. In other words, plans are planned to continue to accommodate the thousands of cars (estimated at 370,000) that demand the capital every day.
European companies are announcing or are already inaugurating areas where polluting car traffic is prohibited – with exceptions for many residents, public transport, few caregivers, deliveries and cities, as was expected for ZER da Baixa/Chiado -, in Lisbon, that A plan ready to be implemented in 2020, after extensive public discussions, nothing has now been advanced on the matter.
Moedas’ speech is mentioned as clarifying his intentions: if four songs at Almirante Reis “to drain traffic” he is not thinking of ending the crossing of the central area of the city.
It should be remembered that the Almirante Reis cycle path was part of the ZER plan, and functioned as an extension of the programming cycle paths for Baixa. The idea was precisely that the traffic that “leaves”, like the one that enters, would stop passing through there, and that both Almirante Reis and Avenida da Liberdade would end up in a prohibited traffic zone, discouraging circulation in that direction.
It was a difficult change – it’s hard to get used to the idea that cars can’t go everywhere, after all our lives we’ve seen them as ubiquitous kings and lords – but necessary and urgent. Instead of her, we now have a mayor who guarantees that he has already personally measured Almirante Reis to see if he can fit four lanes and two more bike lanesand it is necessary to talk to the Lisbon Metro (slow down so that it is in the form of relocation as station entrances or them so that the rides are not so the same, or perhaps even to end them).
All contrary to what was clear. And demonstrating that the city of Carlos Moedas’ 15 minutes refers to the time it took to think about it.