Remember your promises Mr Costa
11 04 2008
- Valorizar a construção nos espaços vazios da cidade em detrimento da expansão da área urbanizável e integrar espaços isolados como a Alta de Lisboa. (How about starting with linking us to the city through the promised Porta sul?)
- Acabar com a imagem de desmazelo da cidade (ever driven up from 2ª Circular to Alta — feels very third world)
- Tapar os buracos nos passeios e restaurar as passadeiras de peões da cidade. (Outside a school on the road to Lumiar (see earlier post)
All to be found here (PDF).
Now one can see all the plans that were laid down. My question still remains: How can any of these plans take place when so many delays have hit Alta (a project which should by now be moving ahead with some speed) since the beginning of this mandate of CML? How can these changes occur when a simple pavement linking thousands (literally) to a metro station cannot be finished?
I won’t post any more on the topic until we have some change (let’s see if we have to wait until the next mandate).
Tom, please do post more about these issues.
I think the first problem with most of these “plans” from mayors, either new projects or “urban renewal”, is the following: they serve first and foremost the vanity, “wish of immortality” and electoral needs of the architects and politicians involved, rather than serving the needs of the people and institutions affected by the plans. One example is the new localization of IPO in Parque da Bela Vista. IPO has a wish to become a strong research hospital and it needs more adequate facilities. The best localization for IPO would be one close to other research institutions, allowing the creation of “critical mass”, putting together scientists and medical doctors, so that they can talk and discuss Science. Of course people can call or email each other, but many great ideas come out from informaI conversations during lunch, coffee break or after a scientific seminar. In accordance, I can think of 3 great localizations for IPO: 1-Close to Santa Maria and the University of Lisbon.2-Oeiras, close to the Gulbenkian Institute of Science, Tagus Park and other scientific institutions and Biotech companies. 3-Alges, close to the posh and rich Champalimaud Institute, which will be built there and be ready in 2010 (except for any possible delay). Any of these localizations would serve well the strategic interests of IPO and the medical doctors and scientist that work there.
But of course this is just gibberish for the politicians that decided that Bela Vista would be a much better localization for IPO. The priority here is that IPO in Bela Vista contributes to the great project of “urban renewal” which will allow Manuel Salgado and Antonio Costa to put their names high there with Duarte Pacheco, etc in Lisbon’s “big plans” history. The “great idea” here is to use the railtrack “linha de cintura”, connecting to Barreiro with the new bridge and to the Cascais railtrack by a new connection in Alcantara, to develop the economic activities along that “crecent” of Lisbon.
I think it is a great idea, if we were still in 1972. Back then lots of people would come from Barreiro and other places in “margem sul”, to work jobs in Lisbon, many of which in Areeiro, Entrecampos, Campo Pequeno, etc. Now, most of these people have retired and the jobs went to other places (segunda circular, CRIL and CREL, Lisboa-Cascais, Lisboa-Sintra, Lisboa-Loures and Lisboa-Alverca axis).
Of course, I am aware that the bridge is also needed for the TGV and a new connection to the airport, and that they are trying to “kill several rabbits with one shot”, but the idea that just because you spent 2 billion euros in a bridge and other projects here, all these areas of Lisbon that are dead will suddenly spring out in burst of vitality, seems a bit ludicrous to me.
Then there is the problem of the new traffic that this bridge will put in Lisbon, which may only be solved with a new toll, like in London. The problem of the credibility that you already spoke about; how can we believe this will get done if they cannot even finish smaller projects like Alta (although my opinion here is much “darker”; that Alta is not being finished on purpose, to benefit some of these other “high priority” projects). And finally, the self serving aspect. Isn’t Manuel Salgado himself the author in many projects in these new “high priority” areas (Vale de Santo Antonio and Alcantara, for example).
Well, I got into a long rant here, but there is a common theme: how the vanity of politicians is an important factor in their decisions.
You are so right. Mr Savoury and Mr Coast probably only heard about Alta when someone asked them about it… then oh dear, too late we could have been famous there too (especially regarding Mr Savoury’s latest comment on Viver that “it is unfortunate there is nowhere else the size of Alta still to be developed”. I mean…. come on!) Alta is definitely on the back burner and waiting till the airport is moved… there will lots of money floating around North Lisbon once all the noise has gone and there is so much potential space. As regards to posting more a mosquito can only bite so many times before the bitten learns to ignore… I’ll wait till the stings have gone down a bit then start again