With one day to go before the Algarve’s EN125 road works are scheduled to be completed, Rotas do Algarve Litoral has announced the suspension of all work from June 30th until the end of August “to ensure better traffic flow during the peak tourist season.”
In January 2017, the Minister for Infrastructure, Pedro Marquês, stated that the western EN125 project will start in April and will be completed by the end of June, stating on May 24th that the only the ‘essential parts’ of the refurbishment will be signed off while instructing motorists to “be patient.”
The long list of partially finished roundabouts, alternating traffic systems, diversions and un-surfaced sections of road is extensive and will serve to turn the easiest of summertime trips into a frustrating, time-wasting and infuriating journey as the Algarve yet again suffers from an age old lack of interest in its infrastructure and economic affairs from Lisbon.
Work on the EN125 restarted only in January this year after being put on hold at the start of the previous summer. The work was started in 2009.
This new suspension period leaves one half of the region as little more than a building site and the other half, the eastern section, a pot-holed, dangerous and decrepit series of challenges.
Welcome to Portugal. The Algarve provides 40% of the country’s tourism revenue with a strong flow of VAT and other tax receipts into the Treasury’s coffers but without the completion of these essential road works, the region is left in disarray and disharmony.
The government secretly will be cheered that the Via do Infante, the only sane alternative to the EN125, will be taking record toll fees this summer. This income boost will serve to reduce the subsidy paid from central funds to top-up the agreed minimum income level agreed in a concession deal that has never been made public - due mainly to the uproar that would result if ever its one-sided, secret clauses were revealed.
Tourism boss, Desidério Silva, reacted, stating only that there may be ‘negative affects’ from not having a functioning road system.
As for an explanation from the minister in charge of this fiasco, not a word...
For a series of road work pictures taken today and posted on Sul Informação, click here
