Car traffic jams have returned to the streets of Lisbon. After the pandemic years during we though the future would be more sustainable, fewer cars, fewer trips – but now mobility in the city seems doomed to a relapse into old and weary patterns. Little or nothing has changed.
According to numbers presented by the Lisbon City Council in its strategic document MOVE 2030, the document that guides the city’s mobility policy, around 370,000 cars entered Lisbon every day in 2018. “Aligned, they would make a line from Lisbon to Paris”, it reads. Although there is no specific number for this year, what is known, from traffic reports already published by the IMT (Institute of Mobility and Transport), is that traffic levels in the city and the metropolitan area not only returned but have already surpassed those recorded in 2019, before the pandemic. The average daily traffic level in Greater Lisbon in September increased by 8.9% compared to the same month in 2019 – pre-pandemic – and 6.2% compared to 2022, according to IMT data published at the end of November.
Lisbon has clear objectives for reducing the presence of automobiles: by 2030, Lisbon must see a decrease in the use of automobiles to a maximum of 34% of trips made by this means of transportation – this is the goal defined in MOVE 2030. In 2017, the car was used in 46% of trips in the city (these are the latest public data).
But the car did not always dominate. In 1981, the automobile represented only 14% of trips, and public transportation played a central role in the city’s mobility – 67%.
How can mobility habits be changed, leading to a city with fewer traffic jams, less noise, and more space for people?
Among experts, there seems to be consensus on the focus on public transportation, but strengthening public transport networks and investing in alternative mobility options may not be sufficient.
This is particularly true because the traffic growth did not take into account, for example, the extension of the metro: only in 1993 did the two new extensions, Cidade Universitária and Campo Grande, open, and in 1997, the Colégio Militar – Pontinha and Rato extensions opened.
Experts suggest that the change may depend on the creation of alternatives but could also be accompanied by the imposition of restrictive measures on automobile traffic.
In essence, the adoption of a policy of “carrot and stick”—simplifying, the simultaneous creation of restrictions and incentives.
The focus on alternatives to automobiles coexists with the growth of cars
In recent years, the Lisbon City Council (CML) has implemented measures to attract new users to public transportation. In 2022, the municipality approved free monthly public transportation passes for Lisbon residents and students between the ages of 13 and 23, as well as for those over 65. By July of this year, more than 90,000 people had already adopted the measure.
More has been done in recent years. In 2017, for the first time in 17 years, Carris inaugurated new routes – the first two of its neighbourhood network. This year, six years later, the network was completed, totalling 28 routes.
The municipal company has been investing tens of millions of euros in renewing its bus fleet and, more recently, trams. New forms of shared mobility have emerged, with private operators providing scooters and bicycles for rent, and the city’s network of bike lanes has expanded – from eight kilometers in 2008 to 125 kilometers in 2022.
In 2017, the city inaugurated the shared bicycle system, Gira bikes. Despite some hiccups in expansion, the network has consistently broken usage records. The system’s goal, as stated on the website, is to ‘transform Lisbon into a more accessible city, less polluted, with less noise, and much less stress.’
Overall, bicycle usage in Lisbon has taken giant strides in the last decade – it grew by 539%. In the 2011 population census, only 599 people identified the bicycle as their main mode of transportation in Lisbon – by 2021, this number had risen to 3,827.
The significant promotion of public transportation in Lisbon (and in other cities and regions of the country) took place in 2019. In Lisbon, monthly pass prices underwent a significant reduction, and fare structures were simplified – thousands of fare combinations were eliminated, and two main transport titles were established: Navegante Municipal for trips within the municipality and Navegante Metropolitano for trips within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (AML).
People responded positively. In October 2019, a record for monthly pass sales in the AML was broken. A total of 768,000 transport titles were sold, marking the second consecutive month of breaking the record – this number represented a year-on-year growth of 24.8%.
Despite all the incentives for public transportation, car usage only slowed down during the pandemic.
In public transportation, it is easier to lose passengers than to gain them
In 2020, the pandemic arrived along with the distrust of using public transportation. The decline in usage during the lockdown requires no elaborate explanations, but the difficulty in recovering the 2019 numbers today has specific reasons, according to Fernando Nunes da Silva, a mobility expert and professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST).
With remote work, public transport operators reduced their services, adopting non-school hours schedules. The result, in some time slots, was the opposite of what was intended – in the midst of the pandemic, vehicles were overcrowded, with fear spreading among passengers.
“Everyone saw on television reports of overcrowded trains, people unable to get on the metro, and the same for buses. Some people were not in confinement, especially those who work early and leave their jobs later.” Like cleaning workers.
The expert and former city councillor responsible for mobility at the Lisbon City Council (CML) between 2009 and 2013 has no doubt: “This situation led people to avoid public transportation.”
Until today, usage levels have not fully recovered.
While car usage levels have already surpassed pre-pandemic values, the increase in public transportation passengers achieved in 2019 with the fare revolution has ‘gone down the drain with the pandemic.’
On the 25th of April Bridge, one of the main entrances to Lisbon, the traffic level recorded in September of this year already exceeded that recorded in the same period of 2019.
Even after the pandemic, confidence in public transportation may have suffered another setback, according to Fernando Nunes da Silva, with the troubled start of Carris Metropolitana – the new brand for road public transportation in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. The offering increased by 30% compared to the service that existed before the brand’s launch in 2022, but before this growth materialized, the service’s debut had growing pains.
In the initial phase, the ‘lack of vehicles, drivers, and, above all, information to users created a certain discredit.’ This, he says, despite the ‘very great effort’ he acknowledges in the creation of the metropolitan brand.
“The image worsened that public transportation was not a good alternative to individual transportation.”
“Many of the people who may have given up on public transportation during the pandemic have not returned yet. How can they be encouraged to return now?”
The Lisbon Metro and Carris are growing, but they have not yet returned to the 2019 levels.
The solution: to give with one hand and take away with the other.
Fernando Nunes da Silva considers that measures such as free public transportation for young people and individuals above the age of 65 were a step in the right direction, emphasizing the particular importance of the case of young people. ‘Young people move around a lot, and experiencing public transportation is an important element in capturing them for public transportation, even as they get older. Once a person tries it and has a good experience, the use of these modes of transportation increases.’
“Another step in the right direction”, he says, is the announced development of a school transportation network. Regarding the additional traffic levels represented by children being transported to school in private vehicles, the expert states it is around 20%. “A true school transportation network for the entire city” could reduce this figure by half, he says.
Fernando Nunes da Silva describes himself as “a supporter of small steps and situations where restrictions are introduced simultaneously with offering alternatives so that people understand the benefits and, gradually, gain greater support”.
For example, the controversial creation of free deterrent parking lots for those with a public transportation pass. The Lisbon City Council announced the construction of parking lots in Pontinha and Lumiar. Public transportation pass holders will be able to park in these and five other lots starting next year, with a total of 1965 spaces planned.
“We are doing many things to encourage [public transportation], but what is lacking is indeed removing incentives for car use”, says Mário Alves, a civil engineer and mobility and transportation expert.
And he recalls the stick and carrot policy.
Only with carrots [incentives], people won’t give up their cars.
Mário Alves and Fernando Nunes da Silva both mention the importance of paid parking. The former recalls how “problematic” the measure of making the sticker for the first car free was, adopted by the previous municipal government.
More than just pricing, reducing parking availability in the city center is a measure being adopted by other European cities, such as Paris or Oslo.
In the Norwegian capital, the solution found to decrease the presence of cars in the city center was the elimination of more than 700 parking spaces. In Paris, a mobility plan is underway that foresees the elimination of about half of its on-street parking – around 70,000 parking spaces. Earlier this year, the city approved an increase in parking fees for larger vehicles, such as SUVs.
“The reduction of parking in city centers is extremely efficient,” says Mário Alves. “Especially for commuting – that is, home-to-work trips”.
Mário Alves advocates for a brake on the construction of more parking as a disincentive to car use. “When we build underground parking, [we should] eliminate the same number [of spaces], or more, on the surface, thereby increasing sidewalks and bike lanes. The control of short-term parking and the reduction of parking is something that has been widely done in Europe. Many cities are taking thousands of parking spaces off the streets each year, and that is a way to begin rebalancing the space, allocating more room for trees and pedestrians.”
The adoption of measures of this kind “should work like an onion, moving from the center increasingly towards the periphery,” he considers.
For the enforcement of measures that may be imposed on car traffic, Fernando Nunes da Silva considers that “the only way to do it” is through the use of traffic control cameras.
In this regard, on November 17, the President of the Lisbon City Council, Carlos Moedas, announced the intention to install 216 cameras capable of reading license plates and monitoring car circulation by imposing restrictions, with no timeline for implementation or any announcement of additional road traffic restrictions. “These cameras are to prevent traffic from coming to downtown”, said Carlos Moedas.
It is worth noting that currently, Reduced Emission Zones (ZER) are in effect. Within the boundaries of Marquês de Pombal, Avenida da Liberdade, Baixa, and Terreiro do Paço, the circulation of cars with license plates dated before the year 2000 is prohibited.
Additionally, to address the constraints caused by the construction of the metro’s circular line and the General Drainage Plan of Lisbon, traffic in the downtown area and part of the waterfront is restricted to local traffic. None of these restrictions is currently subject to automatic and systematic enforcement, and the daily scenario is one of constant violation of the measures, with consequences on traffic, air pollution, and noise.
“Lack of an integrated vision”
There is a “lack of coherence in the measures” and in the strategy followed by Lisbon, according to the experts. And the response, they believe, must be given at the metropolitan scale. Fernando Nunes da Silva criticizes the lack of an integrated metropolitan strategy and the dispersion of wills and responsibilities regarding decision-making on investment in the public transportation network.
“We have the Ministry of the Environment for the Metro, and then we have the Ministry of Infrastructure for trains and boats. This cannot be.”
For example: in the investments planned for the train, with an impact on Lisbon and neighboring municipalities, “it is not acceptable for the municipalities of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area to be left out of the definition of government investment priorities.”
The Metropolitan Transport of Lisbon (TML), an entity owned by AML, focuses only on road transport. “Lisbon is the only metropolitan area in Europe where the metropolitan [transport] authority has nothing to say about heavy passenger transport, be it trains, boats, or the metro. It only intervenes in road transport, which, as we know, is the one most affected by traffic congestion and, therefore, the one that loses the most attractiveness compared to individual transportation.”
More tertiary workers, more cars
The reasons for the dominance of cars in metropolitan mobility are clear. The loss of about 300 thousand inhabitants from Lisbon to the surrounding municipalities was accompanied by an increase in the number of jobs in the city, especially in the tertiary sector, which corresponds to those who use cars the most.
Here, the lack of inter-municipal transportation alternatives is even more noticeable. “If we look at the heavy transportation networks in the metropolitan area, such as the train, they continue to be radial towards the center of Lisbon and only serve certain areas”, says Fernando Nunes da Silva.
Loures is an example, as it doesn’t have a train connection to Lisbon in its territory. The same happens with Barreiro, which is still waiting for the announced third crossing of the Tagus, between Chelas and Barreiro.
Offering people an integrated vision for managing mobility in the city of Lisbon is essential, avoiding the adoption of “isolated positions or under pressure based on what can be done more quickly”.
Explaining to people the city’s (or metropolitan area’s) vision for mobility “is very important for a very simple reason: to give coherence to the measures” and to explain “the interrelationships that the measures have”. When this explanation is lacking, says Fernando Nunes da Silva, “people don’t understand, and they will always react against it.”
Frederico Raposo
Nasceu em Lisboa, há 32 anos, mas sempre fez a sua vida à porta da cidade. Raramente lá entrava. Foi quando iniciou a faculdade que começou a viver Lisboa. É uma cidade ainda por concretizar. Mais ou menos como as outras. Sustentável, progressista, com espaço e oportunidade para todas as pessoas – são ideias que moldam o seu passo pelas ruas. A forma como se desloca – quase sempre de bicicleta –, o uso que dá aos espaços, o jornalismo que produz.
✉ frederico.raposo@amensagem.pt
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