Most people are satisfied with Lisbon City Council's approach to cycle paths. 60% of the respondents give a rating of "very good" or "good", and only 31% evaluate this performance negativelyaccording to the ISCTE/ICS poll carried out for SIC/Expresso. The same poll also puts Fernando Medina, candidate and current Mayor of Lisbon, ahead of his main opponent, Carlos Moedas, although with a shorter gap compared to the first poll carried out in April.
Between 2017 and 2020, bicycle use in the city of Lisbon will have increased by 138%according to counts carried out by the Instituto Superior Técnico for Lisbon City Council. Infrastructure has increased from around 90 km to 125 km at the end of 2020 and around 150 km at the time of writing. In 2017, the year of the last municipal elections, there was still no public bike-sharing system in Lisbon, GIRA.
Coins put bike lanes in the campaign
The issue of bike lanes has been dominating the debate in the public arena, not only online but also offline, and will be one of the key issues in the next local elections, scheduled for after the summer. This month, Moedas put up a billboard on Avenida Almirante Reis with the message: "Poorly planned cycle paths increase traffic jams and accidents. Do you still want to vote Medina?". Moedas has been an opponent of the bike lane on Avenida Almirante Reis.
In an interview with PúblicoIn April, after the first poll, the candidate at the head of the right-wing coalition New Times by the PSD and CDS said that "If I'm president, there won't be a bike lane on Almirante Reis. It's creating more pollution, we have ambulances and buses that can't stop. We can't do it there, but we have parallel streets, we can do cycle paths on other streets, we can rethink the model". Moedas added: "But that doesn't mean I don't want more cycle paths in Lisbon, I just want to think of them in a different way. We have to have a car silo in every parish, that seems obvious to me."
In his municipal programCarlos Moedas, launched this July, puts into practice the statements he made to the Público newspaper and proposes:
"Redesigning Lisbon's cycle network with a focus on safety, comfort and functionality for cyclists and pedestrians, eliminating problematic cycle paths such as the one on Almirante Reis and designing viable alternatives."
- Program New Times
For its part, the More Lisbon, the coalition headed by Fernando Medina and which brings together the PS, Livre and civic associations on the left Citizens For Lisbon e Lisbon is a lot of peopleyet did not present his electoral programbut in the agreement that enabled the coalition between the PS and Livre the desire to promote road safety and cycling is mentioned:
"Give priority to road safety with the aim of eliminating fatalities within the city (...), prioritizing the movement of pedestrians, users of soft mobility and public transport, (...) and guaranteeing the segregation of roads used by motor vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians on higher hierarchy roads."
- A New Green Pact for LisbonPS and Livre coalition agreement
At the same time, Medina has guaranteed that the policy of transforming the public space - which includes investing in a cycling network as a mobility alternative - is to be maintained for the next term. In a recent interview with RTP, Medina said that "having a safe, segregated cycling network, like the one on Marechal Gomes da Costa, is an essential condition for getting more people to cycle" e "Increasing the number of people using bicycles is good for everyone, including those who have to drive every day, because these are people who stop driving and start using bicycles - if not every day, then some days. It's good for congestion, it's good for parking". Medina added that there are "a moral obligation" to reduce pollution-related deaths and act on climate change, "with public transport, cycle paths and a mobility system where people have more options to choose from".
ISCTE/ICS poll carried out for SIC/Expresso sample 803 direct, personal interviews at the respondents' homes. The sample was drawn at random and the responses were collected between July 3rd and 18th. You can consult the survey report below, along with the questionnaire.
The poll gives Fernando Medina a victory with the same percentage as in 2017: 42%. Moedas is closing in on Medina with 31% of the respondents' voting intentions - a result that almost corresponds to the sum of the votes obtained by the CDS and PSD candidates in the last elections, as the newspaper Expresso writes. In April, the first electoral poll on Lisbon, carried out by Intercampus for the weekly Novo, gave Medina 46.6% and Moedas 25.7%. This data will have led Coins changing strategy.
