The middle of the three bridges over the Arade between Lagoa and Portimão will turn into a single lane road controlled by traffic lights as from Monday 15th February.
According to the contractor, the Arade River Bridge’s expansion joints need replacing and this will take at least a month.
The traffic light system will operate 24/7 during this period and inevitably will cause further congestion on the EN125.
The alternatives are the lower bridge between Parchal and Portimão or taking the Via do Infante and having the additional inconvenience of paying a toll.
Making the bridge section of the Via do Infante toll free for the period of the roadworks on the EN125 bridge is too sensible a step for Infraestruturas de Portugal even to contemplate.
Drivers can get settled in for extensive delays, long tailbacks and time to ponder how Portugal’s road system ever degenerated to the extent that is has been allowed to, with expensive tolls on formerly free roads and an historic lack of maintenance leading to much of the EN125 now being dug up as more roundabouts are constructed.
Another plan by Infraestruturas de Portugal is to build a road underpass at the railway crossing at Estômbar - €700,000 of taxpayers’ money to solve a problem that does not exist while the thought of building a railway spur to Faro airport leaves the government in a tizzy, claiming there’s no budget.
One plus point to turning the Arade Road Bridge into a single lane is the timing as if the work really is completed in a month, there will be no delays for Easter tourist traffic.
Comments
The new roundabouts once in place will only improve traffic flow just as the new one in lagoa is proving.
The issue of driving standards has nothing to with the tolls or the state of the 125.
That is the real problem.
No longer do drivers have to play thw which lane should I be in lottery when turning left.
The surface of the 125 improves daily as the work progresses.
There have been complaints for years because nothing was being done and now probably the same people are complaining because it as last happening.
The toll debate is a waste of time and energy, the new government will not change anything.
The last government promised the EN125 would be upgraded to make it a suitable alternative to the A22 when tolls started. This money then was withdrawn as soon as the tolls started. Now its happening all at once but not the 225 million agreed, I suspect.
Had the government kept it promise the EN125 would have been fixed by now.
Had the A22 remained toll free, as it was designed to be, the pressure on the EN125 would be acceptable as these roadworks are done.
having to pay a tolls while they fix the expansion joints is not fair and there should be a timed exemption to allow drivers to use this short section of A22 for the month.
As it is, Ed is right to highlight the EN125 pressure. Telling him/her to go back to Britain is hardly helpful, assuming Britain is where he/she came from.
We like Ed and thing Ed should stay!
At least Ed has a point of view and provokes some debate.
Perhaps if the Portuguese complained a bit more, rather than imagining everything is God's will, the country would get a leadership that knew what it was about.
99% of the UK motorway system is free.
75% of the Via do Infante was built with EU money and then charged for through tolls. If it was made toll-free again, as it once was before Passos Coelho saw it as a profit opportunity for his mates, the pressure on the EN125 would lift and the EN125 roadworks would not have such an affect on so many commuters, school run mums, ambulances, fire trucks, police cars, delivery vehicles and traders forced to use the EN125 every day.
The hours they spend daily sitting in their car in the jams, delays, queues as a result of accidents , traffic volume, roadwirks etc on thr UK motorway network would soon change their mind about the roads in the Algarve.