‘Raise the height and increase the width of the Olhão tunnel walkways. This will reduce the slope and make it easier to use, even for those with reduced mobility.’
This is the nub of the proposal from Olhão council as explained to an audience at a public discussion on Monday night. The mayor is trying to reach some sort of settlement over the upset caused by Olhão’s very own Berlin Wall – the name given to the barrier erected by the national railway company that has cut Olhão in two.
In September 2014, Portugal's railway company Refer caused anger and distress as its contractors fenced off the one pedestrian crossing that everyone used when walking between Avenida da Republica and Avenida Bernardino da Silva, rather than taking the awkward, scary and narrow underpass designed more for cars than people.
Saying that the pedestrian crossing was 'unsafe,' the railway company fenced it off and later met Olhão’s mayor to reiterate that the closure of this crossing point for pedestrians was not negotiable but that it would spend money on alterations to the road tunnel which it said that people will just have to get used to using.
The council last night did not offer sugegstions as to how to make the old pedestrian crossing safe by the simple erection of barriers but concentrated on complicated alternatives involving alterations to a busy road tunnel lined with artistic mosaic which needs to be preserved if at all possible.
The council engineers have done lots of tunnel measuring and concluded that the current underground walkways are not at the legal minimum width anyway so need to be widened at the cost of narrowing the car lanes that sweep under the railway line.
The engineers and the mayor did admit that neither versions of their cunning plan took into account the fact that the tunnel floods every time there is heavy rainfall.
Other solutions were suggested by inventive members of the public and the council team will work on their own version and one other suggestion all of which do little to solve the real problem.
The proposals that have been made, and maybe the third, soon will be available in the Olhão council building and online for the public to mull over until the end of the month when firm proposals will be sent to Refer who are expected to pay for the recommended works.
The mayor wants a solution at a reasonable cost, a solution that can be studied and implemented in a short time. He said that he did not want to spend years in court with Refer to contest the railway company’s unilateral decision to cut the level pedestrian access.
The first round of this contest was lost by the mayor when he met Refer management in Lisbon and was persuaded that the pedestrian crossing closure was not negotiable.
There are two other railway crossings in Olhão that remain open and dangerous, according to the same Refer criteria, yet these have not been ‘made safe’ – the excuse used by Refer when closing the pedestrian crossing.
The installation of a barrier at the currently fenced off crossing, used without incident for decades by Olhão’s pedestrians, may well be the simplest solution for all concerned yet this is no longer on the agenda for discussion.
