Lagoa’s mayor, Francisco Martins, has called on the government to radically improve the Algarve’s transport system.
"In the Algarve we are obliged to have our own transport, we have no real alternative to owning a car."
Martins was speaking at the Lisbon Mobi Summit which was attended by urban mobility experts from Portugal and abroad who were discussing the challenges facing cities.
"Much of what I heard here is for the situation in Lisbon," said the mayor. "When they go to the Algarve in the summer, the people who live in the capital will find a different reality."
"The Algarve is about 160 kilometers from Sagres to Vila Real de Santo António. If you want to travel between the main economic axis of the region, the 60 kilometres between Portimão and Faro, by train or bus, this will take two hours; if you go by car along the EN125, an hour and a half."
These, according to the mayor, are constraints caused by “a lack of investment over many, many years.”
Francisco Martins was not impressed with the MOBI.E project, an intelligent charging network in some cities that uses electricity from renewable sources to charge electric vehicles,
"The project started with the intention of having two per Council area.”
This was scaled down to one and “today there are none," said Martins who appealed to the government to look at the country outside Lisbon when discussing mobility.
The mayor also mentioned the importance of investment in the Algarve which hosts two million people in the summer months which vastly exceeds the local population of 450,000.
The two day international conference was attended by the Minister of the Environment, João Matos Fernandes and the Minister of Planning and Infrastructures, Pedro Marquês whose tardy planning and inefficient delivery are becoming the stuff of legend.
