Scooters. Former Lisbon councilor finds agreement positive, albeit late
ANScooters in Lisbon will have their own mandatory parking spots, a speed limit of 20 kilometers per hour and a maximum number of vehicles in circulation, according to an agreement that the City Council and the five operators in the city signed on January 9th.
Operators have 60 days to adapt, according to the protocol signed by the mayor, Carlos Moedas (PSD), and company representatives.
Fernando Nunes da Silva, who was councilor for Mobility and Transport in Lisbon between 2009 and 2013 (by the Cidadãos por Lisboa movement, elected on the PS list), during the management of António Costa, told Lusa that “not only the measures themselves are good as the way they try to put themselves into practice is a good example of how things should be done”.
However, the mobility specialist considers that the measures should have been implemented before “things developed in a completely anarchic way”.
“These measures are very important, they should have existed at the beginning, when this was allowed to come to the market. However, they will solve some problems. They will not solve them only if it is just a ‘show-off’ for the media, because there are technology that allows, with small modifications to what already exists today in the scooter system itself and also in bicycles, to penalize the user who leaves the scooter out of place or exceeds a certain type of speed”, he said.
In the opinion of Fernando Nunes da Silva, it is necessary to put an end to speeding, the anarchic parking that is visible every day in the streets of the city of Lisbon.
“The technology already exists, it is applied to private sectors or granted to private sectors and solves the problem if put into practice”, he pondered.
In the understanding of the former councilor of the Lisbon Chamber, it is important to continue to encourage complementarity between the means of transport.
“[O modo suave] does not replace, but is a complementary attraction to the use of public transport. One of the things that he came to demonstrate and that made many people speak in percentages and not in absolute numbers was that, in regular trips, bicycles have an absolutely residual use “, he said.
The full professor in Civil Engineering recalled that bicycles do not represent, even in metropolitan areas, 1% of bicycle trips in the country, in urban areas.
“We have to be aware that this is not what will solve the problem of sustainable mobility. It is important, it has room to grow and develop. […] Bicycle users are mainly those who previously made circuits on foot and who used public transport, but it is mainly for a younger population and that can be a complementary element in relation to public transport”, he reiterated.
As far as scooters are concerned, Fernando Nunes da Silva says that they have more to do with “leisure and adrenaline than anything else”.
“I see mainly young people, tourists. To say that it will replace… no. And, worse, its use is dangerous. It is important to create infrastructures that can cause them to be safe and secure”, he said.
The transport and communication specialist Luís Cabral da Silva also told Lusa that the agreement in Lisbon could be good, depending on how it is fulfilled.
“In Portugal, something is done and then it is not complied with or not supervised. So far I have not seen any practical effects. I continue to see scooters in the most incredible places, but I believe that it will improve if the measures were applied”, he said.
Luís Cabral da Silva also considers that bicycles and scooters can be a complement to public transport.
“It may eventually release public transport, although I don’t see any consequences of that, but the [transportes] I have my doubts,” he said.
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