The sidewalk of cubes and parallels in Rua do Arsenal has collapsed due to the weak base and the high traffic of buses in the area. The correction contract is costing the municipality 500 thousand euros. In Rua da Alfândega, where just over a year ago the same sidewalk rectification work was...

Rua do Arsenal has been closed to traffic since the end of February. Joining Rua da PrataThis is yet another inconvenience in downtown Lisbon, forcing bus and streetcar detour and overloading already crowded arteries. However, the the poor state of the pavement of that historic street of the city did not allow further postponement of the inevitable repair work.
At issue is the choice of sidewalk for that street - which is similar to that chosen for the top of Praça do Comércio and the adjoining Rua da Alfândega. The floor was laid with a weak base, so over time and with the high traffic of buses in that area, it began to collapse. The poor condition of the bus has reached such a point that there are Carris buses damaged underneath, according to Gonçalo Matos, president of the citizens' association. Neighbors in Lisbon."Everything was designed for aesthetics, but not for the inherent overload of an important exclusive axis for BUS"mentions.
"When you look at the construction details of the street in the initial design of the contract, you realize that the laying base, on top of which the cobblestones were laid, has materials that can be knocked down."he explains. "It is laid on a concrete slab, but then between the concrete and the cover, let's say, which is the sidewalk itself, you have sands, you have a series of aggregates that collapse. And so, that collapsed and caused several damages to Carris buses. The City Council itself has already received several compensation claims from motorists who punctured their tires there when changing lanes, for example."


It was enough to travel in a Carris bus through Rua do Arsenal to realize the problem of that sidewalk. Even at a low speed, the discomfort of the journey for passengers was notorious and it was felt that drivers had difficulty trying to safeguard the vehicle. However, in some parts of the street, the slopes of the floor were so prominent that the the underside of the buses would hit the streetcar tracks - which were higher - causing damage, as Gonçalo reports.
Neighbors have also received reports of accidents, including one involving a member of the association who was cycling there and fell due to the sidewalk, suffering serious injuries; he was transported to hospital and spent several days on sick leave, he says. "Our Neighbor sent to the Lisbon City Council the proofs from the hospital, but so far the claim has not been heard.. One of the allegations he wrote in that claim was about the poor condition of the floor being known to the Council but not marked on site as such“Gonçalo says that after that incident, only vertical signs indicating the poor state of the road were placed at the site.

Correction already made on Rua da Alfândega
The repair of Rua do Arsenal that is now underway had been planned for some time. In 2021, in a direct adjustment process justified by the fact that it was an urgent situation, the Lisbon City Council awarded a contract to repair Rua da Alfândega, adjacent to Arsenal and which has the same sidewalk and where it also collapsed. The work started in September of that year. The remaining part, which involved Rua do Arsenal and the north side of Praça do Comércio, was not done in the same contract. In the opinion of the Neighbors, the corrections to the sidewalk of that entire axis should have been made simultaneously.
"The floor of Rua da Alfândega had collapsed to such an extent that buses could no longer pass. So a direct contract was put in place., under the State of Necessity"Gonçalo, who, through Vizinhos Em Lisboa (Neighbors in Lisbon), has been following the situation with particular concern, explains."When asked why not do everything right away, the City Council said that it could not technically justify and safeguard the use of the State of Necessity figure for the rest of the axis. A situation that the Neighbors countered, presenting an opinion in which they argued that Rua do Arsenal, being built based on the same execution project as Rua da Alfândega, would present the same pathologies sooner or later."


The Arsenal and Alfândega streets requalification project was done jointly, within a large program of requalification of the entire Riverfront, developed by the still Parque Expo - a public capital company created to manage and facilitate the construction of Expo'98. The design of the two streets is by the architect Bruno Soares, who was part of Parque Expo at the time. In 2015, for 68.5 thousand euros, Soares' team revised the project for the two streets; and in 2016, the requalification advanced in separate contracts, both managed by EMEL: Rua do Arsenal was integrated into the package of 3.2 million of the requalification of Cais do Sodré, a contract awarded to the company Oliveiras; Rua da Alfândega integrated the renovation of 8.8 million of Campo das Cebolas, a work that was in charge of the company ABB - Alexandre Barbosa Borges.
Aesthetics or functionality?
The repair on Rua do Arsenal consists of grubbing up all the cubes and parallels as well as the structural layers of the sidewalk, except the existing concrete slab. To ensure that the floor does not collapse again - at least as easily - the bedding on which the "roof" will stand will be reinforced. In detail, a layer of microconcrete will be laid to regularize the existing laying platform, a layer of cement-treated large-grained crushed aggregate, a layer of bituminous macadam, a layer of dry cement mortar and washed river sand. As many of the floor cubes and parallels as possible will be used and replaced, but those that are damaged will be replaced with new ones.

The correction work at Arsenal is similar to that carried out at Alfândega. The street is only cut in the section where the floor is made of cubes and parallels, since in the remaining part, between Praça do Município and Largo do Corpo Santo, the sidewalk is made of bituminous, which is in better health (although it also has some problems, which will not be corrected at this stage). Once the phase of the work on Rua do Arsenal is completed, the phase concerning the north top of Praça do Comércio will be executed. Overall, the repair is costing close to 500 thousand euros to the coffers of the municipality and will have an estimated duration of four months; the execution is being done by the company Protecnil.
Gonçalo Matos, from Vizinhos, doubts that this project will solve the problem, not least because on Rua da Alfândega there are already some small abatements, just one year after the intervention. "The whole thing was supposed to be bituminous. However, the architect didn't give in. It is what it is"he laments. Gonçalo also says that it will be necessary to repair what is already abating at the Customs House. "Our request to the City Council was to make it compatible to solve the problem of Rua de Alfândega, which will still be covered under the work guarantee, with the intervention in Rua do Arsenal to avoid cutting the streetcars twice. And they said they would look into getting that done. So it should be soon."
Isn't the aesthetic choice costing the city too much?
Designed after the 1755 earthquake, Rua do Arsenal witnessed several remarkable moments in history in the 20th century. In 1908, King Carlos was assassinated. Two years later, the proclamation of the Republic from the balcony of the Lisbon City Hall. In 1974, one of the most important moments of the revolution that established Democracy. Today, Rua do Arsenal is an important hub for public transportation. Through that corridor - which then extends through Praça do Comércio, Rua do Arsenal and Campo das Cebolas - pass 10 Carris bus routes, three Rede Noturna routes and streetcar 15.
