Five GIRA stations, which already have the electrical connections done and were just waiting to be opened, may now be moved from parking spaces to other nearby locations, by pressure from the Parish Council.
The Belém Parish Council (JFB) wants to relocate five GIRA stations installed in the parish and already connected to the city's electrical infrastructure, because they take up car parking spaces. In a Facebook post last Wednesdaywritten in capital letters, the Junta de Belém reported that the five stations "will soon be relocated elsewhere nearby"without giving any further details.
The five GIRA stations that the Belém council wants to move from parking spaces to sidewalk areas are part of the expansion of the bike-sharing system underway. There are two on Avenida da Torre de Belém (one at the top of the avenue and one at the bottom, next to Pingo Doce), one in a parking lot in Algés, another in Largo Alves Miguel next to the cycle path on Rua Fernão Mendes Pinto, and a fifth next to Cordoaria. In addition to the Facebook post, the Junta de Belém also posted notices to the public at each of the controversial stations, which, however, were removed the same day.
A GIRA in a deterrent park
One of the most criticized stations is the one that has been placed in one of the Algés deterrent parking lots, replacing six car parking spaces with 37 bicycle docks. Critics question why the station wasn't placed on the sidewalk next to it, which is a low-use area because there are no pedestrian crossings nearby, or in its location originally planned in the Fernão Mendes Pinto Street redevelopment project - that is, in the middle of the Algés road junction, next to the IP7 viaduct, where the inter-city cycle link between Lisbon and Oeiras is planned.
In Largo Alves Miguel, the GIRA station with 11 docks removed one parking space. On Avenida da Torre de Belém, the two GIRA stations with 19 docks each removed four oblique parking spaces in the Pingo Doce area, where there are still two cafés, and between two and three longitudinal spaces on the north side of the same avenue. In the Cordoaria area, the GIRA station replaced six car spaces with 30 bicycle docks. All told, the parish of Belém could gain 97 GIRA docks and lose 19 parking spaces.
In the same Facebook post, the Belém Parish Council guarantees that it does not intend to create a "war" between motorists and cyclists, and is only demanding "balance and common sense". In the group Neighbors of Bethlehem on the same social network, the President of the Junta, Fernando Ribeiro Rosa, had already shown his displeasure with the location of the GIRA stations a few times, saying in a recent comment which "EMEL is the one who did this nonsense, but it's going to have to reverse this situation". He added "I will do everything I can to ensure that this happens and that EMEL is penalized for the expenses it has unnecessarily caused".
Relocation could increase costs and delay GIRA's expansion process
In a recent comment in the group Neighbors of Bethlehem - João Farmhouse Carvalhosa, treasurer of the Junta, explained that "the Junta de Freguesia took steps with CML to get EMEL to remove the irrationally placed stations" and who are waiting for it to be removed "as committed". According to João, the JFB suggested moving the station in front of Pingo Doce to after the intersection, closer to the end of the avenue. "The others don't have a [new] location yet. EMEL will have to propose it and it will have to be validated by the Junta"he explained.
According to the specifications of the most recent public tender for the purchase of GIRA stations, the installation of a station with 20 docks has a maximum unit cost of 35 thousand euros. It is estimated, from this maximum ceiling, that the reinstallation of the five stations could have an extraordinary cost of 175,000 euros in the worst case scenario. It should be noted that some of the five stations now being contested by the Belém council had already been installed since last summer and were more recently connected to electricity so that they could soon be up and running. Their eventual relocation will involve not only removing the station from its current location and transporting it to the new point, but also new electrical installations, which could make GIRA's expansion process more expensive and delay it.
The alteration or removal of GIRA stations due to pressure from parish councils, shopkeepers or residents has been a regular occurrence since the start of the bike-sharing system's implementation in the city of Lisbon. Since 2018, several stations have been relocated from car-oriented spaces - where they were originally planned - to pedestrian areas before or after their installation, according to some news reports and Lisboa Para Pessoas. Experts believe that GIRA stations should replace car space to promote a real modal transition from the car to more sustainable modes; and this is also the understanding of people close to the process, who believe that the placing GIRA stations on sidewalks encourages the use of bicycles in pedestrian areasThis can lead to conflicts or even accidents with pedestrians.
GIRA moves forward without bike lanes
It should be noted that Belém already has GIRA stations next to the riverside cycle path. The five stations now being contested by the Junta are intended to bring the network to the interior of the parish, where the network of cycle paths is also due to be expanded. With the bike path on Avenida da Índia suspended since April 2021The only cycle path with a utilitarian profile that was ever built in the parish of Belém was the one on Rua Fernão Mendes Pinto. However, the bicycle path plan pop-up announced by Fernando Medina in 2020 envisaged several cycle routes in Belém - in addition to Avenida da Índia and Rua Fernão Mendes Pinto, also on Avenida das Descobertas, Avenida Restelo or Avenida da Torre de Belém. These five cycle paths would give Belém a segregated cycle network for utility use, which would better accommodate the future GIRA stations and which, according to the association's nucleus Neighbors of BethlehemIt would also improve car parking and road safety in the parish.
"Above all, we are surprised by the lack of information. It would be easy for a parish council or residents' association to defend the change of plans if they knew the arguments that led to the basic projects being disregarded and the stations being installed in new locations"Gonçalo Matos, coordinator of Vizinhos de Belém, argues.
To Lisboa Para Pessoas, Gonçalo explains that Avenida da Torre de Belém or Rua Fernão Mendes Pinto "have public space projects in development"to which the Neighbors already had access to and in which "there were places planned for the stations, namely in shelters or other types of safety devices that would accommodate this equipment in a more appropriate way". "We were surprised by the appearance of stations in locations that even deviated from those initially planned in the projects, which indicates that the electrical branches and the structures themselves will have to be relocated at some point." For Gonçalo Matos, there is a "clarification that is necessary and that will have to come sooner or later"and it is essential to consider "not the relocation of these stations, but the entire road projects and their urgent scheduling".
Lisboa Para Pessoas contacted EMEL but has so far received no reply.
