Eight years ago, the young people of São João do Estoril, in Cascais, won a skate park in a privileged location. But the Generations Park may be under threat, with the Cascais City Hall wanting to break it up with a tunnel or an "open-air" road.
Parque das Gerações (PDG), in São João do Estoril, Cascais, is much more than a skate park. It's a meeting point for new and different generations, and a symbol of how the will of the people can be translated. The history of PDG began to be written in 2011, when the project was one of the winners of the Cascais Participatory Budget (PB)with 832 votes and 300,000 euros for implementation. If children and young people often don't have a say in the public space and it doesn't always respond to their needs, in this case the PB enshrined a will that is now under threat.
Construction began in early 2013 on a plot of land next to the railway line and a few meters from São João do Estoril station, with a privileged view of the sea, and was inaugurated nine months later. The idea was to create a park with various areas and obstacles for skateboarding enthusiasts, while replicating the street atmosphere that the skaters are also looking for. At the same time, Parque das Gerações was intended to be more than just a skate park - it has leisure areas, a coffee shop and a children's playground, making it a place where different generations can come together.
In 2017, the Generations Park won the Cascais Participatory Budget againThis time with a proposal for improvement - It was now intended to upgrade the pedestrian circuit, introduce an outdoor exercise area, provide the park with street lighting, build unisex toilets and add new equipment for practicing football. skateboarda concrete "bowl" track with Olympic dimensions and a half pipe in wood with professional dimensions. The preliminary project has been ready since March 2020 and PDG users are now waiting for it to come to fruition, now in shock at the news about the future of their beloved space.
A road in the middle of the PDG? A tunnel?
On a sunny Thursday morning, even though school is back in session, Parque das Gerações is not empty. There are at least half a dozen skateboards rolling around the different obstacles and spaces. The store is open and the terrace is bustling. But PDG is in mourning. Black has become the predominant color on the ramps, on the walls, everywhere; and white letters painted on top shout out slogans: "Make Ramps, Not Roads is one of the strongest messages - but there are others. Along the railing that encloses the park, there are posters made by various people with the same words.
In order to eliminate the only level crossing on the Cascais Line, located right next to the São João do Estoril train station, the municipality's Municipal Master Plan (PDM) provides for a tunnel that will link the Marginal Road to the São João neighborhoods, more specifically to a ring road - the Circular Nascente a São João - which has yet to be completed. The underground connection was to run alongside the current PDG, but now, in the revision of the PDM that is underway and in the public consultation phase, Cascais Câmara is looking at another alternative: making an underpass that passes through the skate park. The municipality says it will be a tunnel, but the PDG community doubts it, because they don't understand how a tunnel can be built there without disturbing the park and the neighborhood.
On Instagram, a video has been shared with more than 78,000 views at the time of writing.
What is at stake?
The Municipal Master Plan (PDM) is a document drawn up by municipalities to plan their territories; it contains guidelines on the implementation of infrastructures, the collective use of spaces, the way buildings are built and their integration into the landscape, as well as organizing the various activities of general interest on a territorial basis. Revisions are made to the PDMs from time to time, and Cascais is now in the middle of this process, which involves a consultation and public participation phase until February 2nd.
There are several changes proposed in this revision but only one concerns the PDG community, number 308. This is the one that proposes a new connection between Estrada Marginal and Rua Egas Moniz, right next to the park. In the documentation, the change is justified with "a substantial change to the route" of the road originally planned, which would pass to the north of the São João do Estoril Secondary School, the reference to "underpass under the train tracks". In other words, the PDM paves the way for a tunnel that crosses the Parque das Gerações from one end to the other.
"The first astonishing thing is that there is no mention of the Generations Park, as if it simply didn't exist. As if this new road was going to cross the wasteland that existed there until 2012"disputes Pedro Corielin a written conversation with Lisboa Para Pessoas. "There are no justifications in terms of mobility, costs, the impact on the neighborhood, not to mention the impact on Parque das Gerações" adds Pedro, the originator of the idea for Parque das Gerações in 2011. An advertising executive by profession, Coriel is no longer connected to PDG - which belongs to the city and whose management is under concession - but like a good "father", he is concerned about the future.
"The closure of the level crossing next to São João do Estoril station, the only one in the municipality, dates back to the last century. It's not a new issue and there has long been a studied solution and land that has been set aside for this purpose for decades." and which Cascais City Council has recently rendered useless by building a parking lot, "infringing its own PDM". Peter's concern goes beyond the PDG. "The only serious road solution to be able to close that dangerous level crossing once and for all is the one included in the current PDM"he says. It was with this solution in mind that the São João do Estoril Secondary School "saw its area reduced" to be built there in the future "a large traffic circle that would receive the traffic coming from the Marginal and distribute it to the nearby towns (São João do Estoril, Areias, Galiza, Livramento)".
The solution now proposed seeks to replace the large traffic circle next to the secondary school with a traffic circle "in a square where two kindergartens, the mortuary of the Estoril Parish Center and a car workshop operate". "All traffic coming from the Marginal would be channeled through the interior of Quinta da Carreira, passing, among others, at the door of the São João do Estoril Elementary School."he explains. "To say that this is the solution that 'best responds to urban needs and their combination with existing facilities and infrastructures' is to make a mockery of the quality of life of those who live in Quinta da Carreira and is an attack on the intelligence of anyone who knows the place at all."
Tunnel or no tunnel?
The PDM mentions an "underpass under the train line", which does not specify whether it is a tunnel or another type of crossing, such as a bridge. In a reply sent to residents and shared with the media, Cascais Câmara clarifies that, "in this process (of amending the PDM to comply with the RJIGT), there is no space to specify that the passage will be in a tunnel and will preserve the Gerações Park"since "the Municipal Master Plan is a strategic plan, drawn at a scale of 1:10,000, without the possibility of presenting details at the level of projects that have not yet begun".
But Peter has many doubts about the tunnel. "No one has yet been able to explain or present the miraculous engineering solution that allows a tunnel coming from the Marginal to reach the surface without touching the Parque das Gerações. A vertical exit? An elevator that unloads the cars directly onto the kindergarten square?"he comments. Even if the solution is a tunnel that preserves the Parque das Gerações, Pedro Coriel believes that such a project would not be enough. "size and complexity" would force the park to "close doors indefinitely"In addition, the location of the entrance, the cafeteria and support terrace, the POP Skate Shop, the lounge area and part of the east square were changed to make room for the exit from the tunnel and traffic circle.
"What's more, in the PDM, this alteration is budgeted at 1.7 million euros, less than half the cost of the new Quinta da Carreira Urban Park. If it were a tunnel, it wouldn't cost less than 8 million"he says, pointing to the estimate made by a civil engineer "with more than 20 years' experience, who was even involved in the construction of the Marques Tunnel" and invited the park to write a technical report. "A bit of common sense: does it make sense to build a tunnel that would cost at least 8 million to safeguard a park that cost 300,000? In other words, building the tunnel would be the equivalent of building almost 30 Generations Parks. If there's so much money available to invest there, invest it in the park. With a quarter of a tunnel, you'd have one of the best skate parks in the world."
Pedro Coriel explains that at a town hall meeting with the PDG concessionaire last year, he was told that the PDG improvement works under the 2017 Participatory Budget could not go ahead right now because an open-air road would run through the middle of the park - this road would connect the Marginal Road to the interior of the Quinta da Carreira neighborhood, with two traffic circles on each side and pass under the railway line, and there was a previous study for the project. "It was the image of this road that I published in my April 2021 post. I was insulted, labeled a liar and my publication was stamped 'false', without even being heard, by that great example of impartiality and good journalism called Polygraph."Pedro laments. "The road that was just a preliminary study was actually being planned since 2018 and was part of the amendment to the PDM that Cascais Câmara was working on behind everyone's back, including the concession. Everything I wrote in April was true and this time there was no denying it. The council's total silence over the last week proves it."
The Cascais City Council guarantees that "the Generations Park is a very important facility in the municipality" and that, "so it was never an option to deactivate it". He adds "the new access will have to pass under the train line and will therefore also pass under the Parque das Gerações without jeopardizing it". For the municipality, "this new access will improve access to the park". The executive chaired by Carlos Carreiras also says that "the present Plan establishes 2025 as the deadline for this infrastructure (PDM deadline), but there is still no specific date from the competent services to start the projects that will only be viable after this process comes into force".
"But if there's one thing this park doesn't need, it's better accessibility, which is one of the factors that has contributed most to the success of this facility: being close to everything"he argues, naming the train station, nearby bus stops, the Marginal and the A5, schools, local shops and the health center. "The improvements that the Park needs are more than identified, they won the Cascais Participatory Budget in 2017 and have been waiting to see the light of day for more than 4 years."
Chamber doesn't value PDG?
In a text he wrote on the occasion of PDG's 5th anniversary in 2018, which he shared with Lisboa Para Pessoas and which he says is still very topical, Pedro wrote that, when he got it into his head that "an 11,000 m2 vacant lot on the seafront, in the neighborhood where I've lived since I was born, was the perfect place to build one of the best skate parks in Europe"that was "unthinkable for any mayor in this country". A skate park, he said, could not be built "on a prime plot of land, close to everything (transport, schools, shops) and with a view of the sea" but "as far away and in the least valuable terrain as possible"because "skateboarding is for vandals". Pedro regretted in 2018, as he does now, that Cascais Town Hall doesn't value the equipment it has more:
It's a source of enormous pride to see the Park filling up every day with people of all ages, genders, colors and social backgrounds, in an extraordinary atmosphere of sharing and camaraderie. To see the birth of the best skate store and school in the country. Seeing the international recognition, the number of foreigners who come to see the Park on purpose and the world brands (Element, Volcom, Vans) who have chosen Parque das Gerações, out of all the Parks in Europe, to hold the final stage of their championships here.
"The Generations Park, despite being a facility that has won two Participatory Budgets, that has hosted dozens of national and international competitions, that has attracted thousands of people of all ages and nationalities for more than eight years, has always been a facility that has been neglected by the Cascais City Council."says Pedro. "Despite being a public park, it's one of the only ones, if not the only one, without public lighting, toilets, an irrigation system or green spaces worthy of the name. If it were an important facility for the municipality, it would have already had the maintenance and expansion work it so desperately needs. But as the important facility it never was, it had to beg for these more than justified works in the 2017 Participatory Budget."
