The requalification of Largo de São Sebastião da Pedreira, which was scheduled for 2021, will finally go ahead. The project includes an extension of the Gulbenkian bicycle path.
Whoever passes by Largo de São Sebastião da Pedreira, in Avenidas Novas, today will find a disorganized space where priority is given to cars. Within a year, the situation will be reversed: this will be a mostly pedestrian square.
O São Sebastião Square will be requalified under the program A Square in Every Neighborhoodin a contract which will be in charge of the Tecnovia construction company and will be coordinated by SRU, the municipal works company. It will cost about 2.50 million euros. Besides the requalification of the square itself, where the pedestrian space will grow significantly, the work will cover some of the surrounding streets, such as the Dr. António Cândido Streetwhich will lose its road connection to the square and will be fully restored.
Also Filipe Folque Street and its intersection with Avenida António Augusto Aguiar will be changed. Here it is a simple previous work of vertical and horizontal signaling to reestablish in this street the two directions of road circulation, and that will require the elimination of parking on one side of the street in some points. The goal is to compensate for the pedestrianization that will be carried out in the square and to direct car traffic to Filipe Folque Street, which will no longer be able to go through Dr. António Cândido Street.
This intervention in Filipe Folque has already started and will last for a month, and should be concluded by mid-April. From then on, the work can move on to the Largo de São Sebastião. The following are planned three phases In this requalification: a first phase, of five and a half months in the southern part, in which Rua Nicolau Bettencourt, which crosses the square, will be cut off and the connection with Rua Dr. António Cândido will be definitively blocked; a second phase, of five months, in the northern part of the square; and a third phase, of a month and a half, which will involve finishing work in the entire intervention area, planting, and the installation of street furniture.
From 2015 to 2023
The requalification of Largo de São Sebastião da Pedreira will make this public space - today a cluttered parking lot - the domain of the pedestrian. The width of the traffic lanes and radii will be reduced to promote a reduction in traffic speed; the width of the sidewalks will be increased, with the introduction of comfortable, slip-resistant sidewalk; and architectural barriers will be removed by eliminating bulges in the crosswalks and including tactile flooring.
Car parking spaces will be organized in the square and mainly in the surrounding streets, and parking spaces will be created for motorcycles and bicycles. It is planned to inclusion of cycling counterflows with 30+bicycle lanes to allow those coming from the Praça de Espanha/Gulbenkian bicycle path to continue their journey and, through the square and neighborhood streets, to reach Picoas - to allow those coming from Picoas to reach Picoas. in a parallel path to Avenida António Augusto Aguiar - and to make the same route possible in the opposite direction.
In the renovated Largo de São Sebastião the installation of a GIRA station is planned; vertical signage will be reduced with an increase in horizontal signage, in order to reduce visual noise in the landscape; and the number of car parking spaces for users with limited mobility will be increased. Stays will be introduced in order to promote outdoor activities, recreation and leisure, with the implementation of a kiosk with terrace in the square, a reinforcement of the existing trees and the placement of new benches.
The work in the public space will be used to move the telecommunication cables from the façades of the buildings to the underground - a desire that the Lisbon City Hall intends to extend to more areas of the city through the program Lisbon Wireless.
Connection with Gulbenkian
The work for the requalification of Largo de São Sebastião da Pedreira has been going on since at least 2015, and between the end of 2018 and the beginning of the following year, contributions were collected from the population via an online form. In May 2019, the execution project was presented to the population for the first time, in a session promoted by the Avenidas Novas Parish Council, and in 2020, more opinions on the proposed intervention were received by the municipality. The beginning of the work was scheduled for the first quarter of 2021 and its course throughout that year, but this ended up not happening.
Two years later, the work is finally moving forward. This Friday, March 24th, a new public session was held to present the project to the population, bringing together residents and merchants from the Largo de São Sebastião area, the SRU, and an official from Tecnovia. Some restaurant owners questioned the timing of the construction, pointing out that it will peak in the spring/summer for their businesses. They were also concerned about the loading and unloading places during and after the construction.
For their part, residents have raised concerns about parking, since it is planned to eliminate a hundred or so parking spaces during the construction workThis is an area where they say it is already difficult to park because of El Corte Inglés (they claim that some visitors to this commercial space choose to park on the street instead of in its underground parking lot). The residents were told to mobilize and ask EMEL to make the whole area of the square, after the works, be exclusive for residentswhich would also solve the problem of El Corte Inglés. The Avenidas Novas Parish Council showed solidarity with the parking situation and added that it has already received information from EMEL that the Lisbon mobility company is creating nighttime inspection teams to solve the abusive occupation of parking spaces by residents that occurs at times.
The work has an estimated timeframe of 11 months, and should be completed by early 2024. To allow a smooth continuity between the Gulbenkian Garden extension and the new Largo de São Sebastião, Rua Marquês da Fronteira will also be redeveloped. The construction work will be launched soon and will be concluded in April 2024, the date scheduled for the inauguration of the new south wing of the Gulbenkian Garden. Access to the garages and loading and unloading will be ensured during the entire course of the work.
