The long-awaited humanization of Avenida Infante Dom Henrique is the penultimate step to complete the requalification of the riverside axis between Cais do Sodré and Santa Apolónia. The last piece of the puzzle will be the surroundings of the train station.
Around the Infante Dom Henrique AvenueThere is already a refurbished waterfront, with a wide promenade, growing trees, a continuous cycle path, a new Cruise Terminal and a renovated Campo das Cebolas. Now, the aim is to give this avenue a more human profile and rationalize the space dedicated to cars.
The desire to humanize Avenida Infante Dom Henrique is a long-standing wish of the Lisbon City Council, which has been slow to move forward. The work has been included in EMEL's Activity Plan for the 2021-2024 period as "the biggest challenge of reconverting public space for more sustainable mobility" and was expected to run throughout 2021. "Interventions such as the one planned for Avenida Infante Dom Henrique are aimed at rationalizing the immense infrastructure designed to serve car traffic."
The project planned for Avenida Infante Dom Henrique involves the stretch between Campo das Cebolas and Boqueirão Praia da Galé, next to the Cruise Terminal. The drawings complement the interventions already made and leave room for future work around Santa Apolónia station. In addition to Avenida Infante Dom Henrique, a number of small streets (two of which will be pedestrianized: Rua do Cais da Lingueta and Boqueirão da Praia da Galé) and part of Rua do Cais de Santarém will be intervened.
The intervention, covering a total area of 21,500 square meters, will give the area the dark tones that we are used to seeing on the waterfront. The area dedicated to cars will be reduced by widening the sidewalks and pedestrian zones and creating new green spaces. The avenue will now have one traffic lane and a BUS corridor in each direction; in the BUS corridor, srails will be laid with a view to the future extension of streetcar 15 to Santa Apolónia and in the future to Parque das Nações.
The project for Avenida Infante Dom Henrique is part of the Cais do Sodré/Santa Apolónia axis of the Downtown Pombaline Waterfront Intervention PlanThis includes the projects already carried out at Cais do Sodré and Corpo Santo, Ribeira das Naus, Praça do Comércio, Estação Sul e Sueste, Campo das Cebolas, Doca da Marinha and the Cruise Terminal. There are only two pieces missing: this project for Avenida and the intervention in Santa Apolónia, where a traffic circle is planned.
The intervention on Avenida Infante Dom Henrique will be carried out by EMEL, after the Lisbon City Council (CML) commissioned the municipal company to carry out the work in 2019, assigning it a budget of 5.088 million euros. In practice, there is a "mandate contract" between EMEL and CML that allows the former to spend this maximum amount, paid for by the latter, on the aforementioned requalification. But the need to carry out additional archaeological surveys - understood to be accurate on the basis of past experiences in Campo das Cebolas and Cais do Sodré - and the precaution on the part of Metro de Lisboa in carrying out complementary support studies to safeguard the safety of its tunnel, has led to delays in concluding the public tender that will allow the contractor to be found and the work itself to begin. EMEL has been working on the redevelopment of the avenue, but only on parallel tasks - the surveys and complementary studies. According to the Base public procurement portal, the company has spent at least 60,000 euros on two contracts for this purpose (here e here) over the past year.
The delay in starting the work has led CML to make at least two additions to the initial contract with EMELIn other words, to adjust this contract based on the amount that was planned to be spent, which in the end will not be spent and could be allocated to another activity within the council. The first amendment (Proposal 249/2021) was approved by a majority in both the town hall meeting and in AML plenary session in May; the second addition (Proposal 814/2021) was approved by a majority - with only the two PCP councillors voting against - at the City Council's executive meeting on December 20, which has yet to be approved by the AML.
