The anti-tolls organisation CUVI met over the weekend to review three years of tolls on the Algarve’s Via do Infante motorway and to reflect on the death toll on the EN125, aptly named the ‘road of death.’
With horrible coincidence, another motorist was killed on Sunday near Algarve Shopping in Guia in a three car smash leaving treasured Algarve guitarist Miguel Drago dead at the scene.
"The main conclusion to be drawn is that the three years of tolls, introduced by the PSD/CDS coalition government with the support of the Socialist Party, have proved to be a real tragedy for the Algarve region. Due to heavy traffic and lack of conditions, the EN125 again has become the ‘road of death’ just as CUVI warned at the beginning of the tolls scheme.
“In three years 100 people have died on the EN125 and there have been many hundreds injured in the Algarve in thousands of accidents with an average of 20 traffic accidents a day and 600 accidents per month.
“On Sunday there was another terrible accident on the EN125 where the tragic outcome was another fatality and two seriously injured. This terrible tragedy that is happening in the Algarve has to stop as soon as possible and the main protagonists are the leaders who imposed the motorway tolls."
CUVI also claims that "the tolls have contributed to the ruin of the regional economy and have aggravated the social problems of many families, have triggered bankruptcies, wages arrears and unemployment. The refurbishement of the EN125 continues to drag and the road is increasingly damaged. Exorbitant fines and liens for non-payment of tolls has become a glaring injustice and a scandal.
“At Easter we saw once again the endless queues of vehicles coming from Spain at the Guadiana border whose drivers waited their turn to make their payments. This is a shame for a region that lives from tourism, an activity that should be properly valued and dignified.
"As if this were not enough, the Via do Infante concession holder continues to line its pockets with millions of euros at the Portuguese taxpayers' expense. Passos Coelho lacks the courage to end these tolls and end a truly ruinous PPP for the Algarve and for the country, but he does not feel the shame as he continues to cut back on salaries, allowances and the pensions of the citizens of this country.”
For the approaching summer season, CUVI has scheduled a set of actions for the abolition of tolls on the A22, as follows:
- On Monday a letter was sent to the Secretary General of the Socialist Party to request a hearing as a matter of urgency, to address the toll issue, its consequences and its future in the Algarve.
- An slow drive past on the EN125 on May 23rd and the placing of a memorial and a moment of silence in a place to eb announced there have been deaths.
- A new action against the "road of death" in EN 125, on the 4th of July, details later;
- Participation of CUVI at the international bikers festival in Faro this summer.
- In August the Users Committee again will demonstrate at the summer holiday locations of the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic.
- Turn up at the annual Passos Coelho Pontal party in Quarteira where his ministers and friends will be reminded that the tragedy of the tolls and the EN125 death rate continues and that the PM and colleagues are all persona non grata in the Algarve.
All this effort could be avoided if the government did some governing and commissioned and released a report that looked the economic impact of the tolls on the Algarve’s economy and weighed this with the costs of installing and running the tolls scheme and the annual subsidy sent to Spain due to the drop in numbers of vehicles using the motorway since the introduction of tolls.
By refusing even to account for the scheme, the government is open to widespread criticism, but with a comfortable coalition ensuring it does not have to answer any difficult questions, the tolls remain with a complex range of payment methods and a collection system that defies polite description.
Unpaid tolls can not be paid after a matter of days and then disappear into a compuetised never-never land, yet pop up three years after the journey with a stiff admin fee for being late.
Demands for payment are sent to drivers whose vehicles were sold years before the journey took place, and drivers of foreign plated cars travelling without paying seem to receive no encouragement to contribute to the fun.
The management of the tolls scheme has been poorly handled by amateurs armed with computers and a limitless budget which, combined with a government that very possibly has made a major financial error in tolling the motorway, means the tolls will stay despite them costing Algarve motorists €70 million and the general taxpayer countless millions in mysterious support payments to the Spanish owned concession holder.
