By the end of the current mandate, there will be GIRA stations in all of Lisbon's parishes, promises the executive led by Carlos Moedas. "About that there is no doubt."
GIRA should reach all 24 parishes in the city of Lisbon "until the end of the mandate"revealed this Wednesday the Councillor for Mobility, Ângelo Pereira, at the decentralized public meeting dedicated to the parishes of Marvila and Alvalade. If this promise comes true, it will mean the long-awaited arrival of the city's shared public bicycles in areas that are currently outside the network, namely Marvila, until 2025.
"This executive decided that the GIRAs would have stations in all of Lisbon's parishes by the end of this mandate. We are preparing an expansion plan for all the parishes"said Ângelo Pereira, in response to a citizen concerned about the lack of GIRA stations in Marvila. "As far as the parish of Marvila is concerned, we have four locations at the moment, but we'll work out the exact location together with the parish council"he said, revealing the four locations already planned:
- Braço de Prata / Parque Ribeirinho Oriente
- Davide Leandro da Silva Square
- Chelas Metro
- ISEL
It is not known whether more stations will be installed in Marvila in addition to these four.
"Looking at the map of GIRA stations I have great difficulty understanding why Marvila doesn't have any"said resident Ricardo Carvalho, adding that it is important for the stations to be close to each other. "of Marvila's major housing centers". The Mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas, stressed the importance of GIRA reaching the whole city: "My vision and my order, if you like, with regard to the GIRAs is that they should be in all the parishes, that this should happen and that the locations should be found. There's no doubt about that."
Marvila with little smooth mobility
The lack of a GIRA network in Marvila has been a recurring issue, not least because there is only one private soft mobility operator in the arealeaving the population with fewer options. Of the six companies present in Lisbon, only Whoosh has recently started operating in Marvila with its scooters; the scooters and bicycles of Bolt, Bird, Lime, LINK and Frog, on the other hand, mark that parish as a prohibited parking zone in their apps, preventing people from completing their journeys there, and some of these platforms don't even allow vehicles to circulate in Marvila, automatically locking the engine from a distance.
In the presentation of Participatory Study on Mobility in MarvilaAt the Marvila Municipal Library on Tuesday afternoon, the subject of GIRA was a recurring theme throughout the meeting. It should be remembered that this study pointed out inequalities in the parish in relation to the rest of Lisbon, not only in terms of GIRA, but also in terms of cycle paths and other types of cycling infrastructure:
"It is possible to identify several problems related to transport infrastructure in Marvila (...); however, it is important to emphasize that these problems are accentuated when we think about active mobility, from the absence of docks for the municipal shared bicycle GIRA throughout the parish to a diminished supply of cycle paths compared to the reality of the city of Lisbon. As Baker (2022) recently proved"By cross-referencing socio-economic data and infrastructure dedicated to bicycles (bike lanes and Gira docks), there is an inequality in the city in terms of access to these services, i.e. territories with lower socio-economic indices have less (or no) access to these infrastructures."
- Participatory Study on Mobility in Marvila
The expansion of GIRA to all of Lisbon's parishes is likely to be a major challenge that will have to be accompanied by the acquisition of new bicycles. According to Activity and Budget Plan (PAO) 2022-2025 of EMEL, presented and approved in January, the municipal mobility company foresaw a growth from 102 to 171 stations this year - a network growth of 67%. "In the following years, the planned rate of expansion is more moderate, contemplating 20 new seasons a year“the same document read - all told, that's around 230 GIRA stations by 2025.
EMEL expects to collect more than 854,000 euros from GIRA this year, but with the expansion of the network, by 2025 the public bike-sharing system will be generating around 1.25 million euros in revenue. In terms of expenditure, 1.44 million euros are expected to be invested in stations and 1.38 million in bicycles by the end of the mandate. The figures should be revised this year in the planned annual update of the PAO.
