Five of the 14 trees that were planted in 2022 in two streets in Penha de França, Lisbon, have had to be removed because of work on a drainage system. This work had been planned since at least the beginning of 2021, but the trees were planted in those streets last year anyway,...
Five of the 14 trees planted just one year ago by the Lisbon City Hall in two streets in Penha de França have now been removeddue to sanitation work that was already planned before the planting. The five specimens have been transplanted to other locations and will be replaced by new ones of the same species as soon as the works are completed. But this story reveals an apparent lack of coordination between different interventions in the city's public space.
According to the Lisbon City Hall, "within the scope of the construction work of the new sewage collector in Rua do Triângulo Vermelho"it was necessary to proceed to the "transplanting a total of five trees" that were located on these two streets - two trees on Red Triangle Street and three trees on Great War Nurses Street. "This intervention was necessary in order to guarantee access to the garages and the circulation of vehicles".the municipality adds on your site.
The trees removed from the streets of the Red Triangle and the Great War Nurses have been transplanted to empty gutters in the streets Barão de Sabrosa and Cruzado de Osberno, also located in the parish of Penha de França, according also to information from the municipality. Even though it was guaranteed that the trees would be transplanted and new ones planted after the work, it is still strange that five species are being removed only a year after they were planted.
This caused surprise to a resident who had participated in the planting of the 14 trees, which took place in April 2022. "I went along with the planting of the trees. It was very positive because I live on the street and it was very hot and had no trees. And it was with surprise and regret that a few days ago I noticed that the trees are being uprooted, with the sanitation work that is happening on one of these streets."he told LPP. "It seems to me a lack of planning and mismanagement of public money. I hope they plant the trees soon when the construction work is finished. This area of Penha, besides ample green spaces, needs tree-lined streets so it can lower the temperature."
The work on the collector sewer in Rua do Triângulo Vermelho was planned since at least February 2021 - that is, one year before the planting of the trees took place. In fact, the project to repair the sewage infrastructure is from February 2021; according to the descriptive memory, attached to the project, "the existing collector on Rua do Triângulo Vermelho is proven to be in a poor state of maintenance and functioning, both in dry and wet weather. Manifestations of sidewalk subsidence along Red Triangle Street are also of concern and represent an imminent risk of roadway collapse, associated with the subsidence of both the existing drainage infrastructure and the adjacent voids caused by underground runoff given the malfunction of the existing infrastructure.". With this work, it is intended that the new collector is "capable of effectively draining dry weather flows and sizing unit flows associated with a 10-year return period rainfall, under good track, operating and maintenance conditions".
The public tender for the work was launched in October 2022, having the award was made in April of this year by 377.3 thousand euros to the company Manuel Pedro de Sousa & Filhos, Lda. The construction work began in June and is expected to last until the end of November, having forced the cutting of the road traffic on Red Triangle Street.
The planting of the 14 trees on the two streets - the Red Triangle and the Great War Nurses' Street - was done on April 1, 2022 under the municipal program A Tree In Every Neighborhoodof the Lisbon City Hall, and of the project 100 Years 100 Treespromoted by three associations and that had the objective of planting 100 trees in the city of Lisbon to honor all those who participated in the 1st World War on its centenary.
The two streets in question "are part of a set with toponymy evocative of World War I: both pay tribute to members of civil society who organized to help the wounded and vulnerable of the war"According to the promoters of the project (Associação Lisboa Verde, APAP - Associação Portuguesa dos Arquitectos Paisagistas and LAJB - Liga dos Amigos do Jardim Botânico de Lisboa). For this reason, they were selected. There were still two streets without trees, similarly to the great majority of the streets in the parish of Penha. A opening of 14 boilers in automotive space and the planting of 14 specimens of the species Acer monspessulanum (common name: zêlha) counted with technicians from the Lisbon City Hall, with a representative from the Penha de França Parish Council and with the involvement of the local population.
