The pedestrian railway crossing which separates Olhão’s north and south was closed by the railway company Refer a year ago on the grounds of ‘health and safety,’ despite no known accidents since the railway line reached the town in 1904.
Contractors erected fences and dug up concrete access paths either side of the railway line to stop people from using the crossing, forcing them to use the road underpass instead.
The security fencing was vandalised and repaired countless times in a well-publicised game of cat and mouse, with locals dubbing the area, the ‘Berlin Wall.’
Mayor António Pina met Refer to demand that the railway crossing was reopened with enhanced safety equipment to ensure the public can use the crossing without fear of tripping over lose chippings, blocs of cement and railway sleepers that currently hamper pedestrians as they cross the line.
Pina failed in these talks and Refer, now amalgamated as 'Infraestruturas de Portugal,' is to remodel the hated road underpass at great public expense and is to force pedestrians to use it despite a steep incline and personal safety issues.
Before work starts on the underpass, the railway company will reopen the level crossing which now has new safety railings, similar to the ones it dug up and removed a year ago.
While the road underpass is being widened, hopefully without damage to the famous wall mosaics, the railway crossing will be open to all, but only between 06:30 and 22:00 as a series of highly trained operatives have to stand guard to ensure people know how to cross a railway line safely.
When the road underpass work has been completed, the railway crossing again will be shut off to pedestrians, unless the road underpass floods, which it does whenever there is medium or heavy rainfall, in which case someone will potter along and open the level crossing temporarily until the road underpass again is passable.
This, apparently, is the “the best solution" for the convenience of Olhão’s public.
The delay in reopening the level crossing scheduled for July this year, was, according to the mayor, due to the need for the council to launch a public tender for the purpose of hiring ‘human surveillance’ which Infrestruturas de Portugal insisted on as “it is the law.”
The tender for the work on the underpass has yet to be published by Olhão council but the work should start ‘later this year or early 2016.’
Any thought to install modern equipment that simply closes the railway crossing gates when a train is coming seems to be beyond the capabilities of Portugal’s infrastructure company whose dogged adherence to health and safety concerns, rather than common sense, has created a system that not only is laughable in its complexity, but does not best serve those pedestrians who have proved capable of crossing a railway line for decades without loss of limb or life.
A second breach in the fencing some 400 metres to the east, a useful shortcut opened by those wishing to cross the railway line to get to a local supermarket, has remained open at a point on the track where steep sides have made this crossing hazardous even for the sound of limb.
The probabilty that the Berlin Wall level crossing again will be vandalised when the railway crossing gates are locked, i.e. after the underpass has been remodeled, is high.
This example of 'The State vs The People' may seem inconsequential to some observers but locally it is a test of the will of the locals and their self-determination, pitched against a government funded body which lacks sense, communication skills and empathy.
The picture below shows the extent of the flooding in the road underpass when there has been rainfall.
