Belém council ignores neighbors' proposal and legalizes parking on the sidewalk

Days after the Municipal Police showed up in the Restelo neighborhood to fine cars parked on the sidewalk, the Belém Parish Council took action: instead of moving forward with the painting of parking spaces that would safeguard pedestrian mobility, chose to legitimize the situationThis is an informal practice that has been going on for decades, but which until now had no legal framework. Parking with two wheels on the sidewalk and the other two on the road is now legal on three streets in Restelo, which is causing controversy.

These three streets - the Rua Dom Cristóvão da Gama, Tristão da Cunha Street e Rua São Francisco Xavier - are three longitudinal roads that cut through the neighborhood from one end to the other, intersecting with three main streets: the Soldiers of India Streeton the westernmost side; the Duarte Pacheco Pereira Streetin the center, where you'll find the neighborhood's local shops and the popular Careca pastry shop with its croissants; and the Belém Tower Avenueon the opposite side.

Over the years, the number of cars in Restelo's households has increased, putting more pressure on the streets. Although there is parking inside the houses, many people prefer to keep their cars on the street in order to optimize the space inside their homes. There's another problem: with irregular parking on the street, maneuvering the cars onto private land becomes difficult or even impossible in many situations.

What is certain is that parking on the sidewalk, common not only in Restelo but in other parts of Belém and the city, is detrimental to pedestrian mobility and even makes entire neighborhoods inaccessible to many people with strollers or wheelchairs - as is the case with Catarina, "a rare species on wheels", content creator on Instagram.

The Neighbors' Solution

The situation of parking on the sidewalk has been going on for years in Restelo. In 2020, the association Neighbors of Bethlehem mobilized a group of residents interested in building a solution to be presented to both the Parish Council and the Lisbon City Council. So they did. They counted vehicles and available parking spaces, identified the dynamics of the neighborhood and designed a proposal, with several plans and a descriptive memory.

"Various configurations were first studied, including those that legitimized parking on the sidewalk. It was concluded, however, that any proposal with parking on top of the sidewalk would seriously damage the number of spaces available once they were ordered"the proposal document states. The reason why parking on the sidewalk is not advantageous - apart from seriously impairing pedestrian mobility and accessibility - is that there are obstacles such as lamps, fire hydrants and electricity boxes that would force several spaces to be removed. "There are, on average, 18 obstacles on each side of each street. That means that more than 30 places are lost"identified the neighbors.

The citizens' proposal calls for 874 orderly places throughout the neighborhood. How? The three streets where parking has now been legitimized over the sidewalk would have spaces only on one side of the street and circulation on the other - this parking would be on the side of the street where there are fewer garage doors, allowing for not only the greatest number of spaces possible but also a calming measure within the neighborhood. On Rua Soldados da Índia, a traffic lane would be removed to create a spine-shaped parking lot, providing 229 parking spaces.

The neighbors I could even go further and suggest spine parking on Avenida da Torre de Belém, where the circulation space is too wide and could easily be reduced. But that wasn't necessary. The residents' group counted 452 houses in the neighborhood, 72 of which are corner houses and therefore have two parking spaces inside; the remaining 380 have just one space. When all is said and done, there are 524 seats in the grounds of the houses. Considering, however, that there are two cars per household, there will be a total of 904 cars in the neighborhood. However, the counts made by the neighbors showed that demand is lowerIn the middle of the pandemic, when people would be at home and travel would be minimal, an average of 607 cars were parked in the Restelo neighborhood; at most, 657 cars were counted.

Thus, the 874 seats proposed would be more than enough for all Restelo residents and there would still be more than 200 seats left over for visitors. In short, the Neighbors of Bethlehem would create spaces on the street for all residents, but not always at the door. But those who didn't want to park further away from their homes (even though we're only talking about a few meters) could put their car in the space they have in their house, benefiting from the space needed on the street for entry/exit maneuvers, since there would no longer be vehicles on both sides of the road to complicate this process. "The residents worked hard to draw street by street, place by place, pillar by pillar, on an aerial plan of each artery"is highlighted in the document. "It was many weeks of hard work, involving counts of parked cars at different times of the day, rigorous design for the preliminary study of the horizontal signage to be implemented and several long meetings with all the stakeholders."

The junta's provisional solution

The Neighbors of Bethlehem presented the proposal to the Junta and also to the Lisbon City Council during the previous term. But in four years, the idea was never implemented and the discussion was lost among the offices, whose leaderships also changed. Now, with the Belém Council and the Town Hall aligned on the same political color (PSD), progress has been made on regulating two-wheeled parking on the sidewalk - a situation that is permitted by the Highway Code and the Traffic Signs Regulations, with the appropriate vertical signs. It was this signage that the Junta put up, with the agreement of the City Council, at the entrance to Dom Cristóvão da Gama, Tristão da Cunha and São Francisco Xavier streets.

On March 25, the Junta de Belém announced on social mediaI am in the process of "planning parking in the Restelo district" with "installation of suitable temporary signs to allow vehicles to park on two-wheeled kerbs on both sides of the road"in the three streets mentioned. He added: "In view of this provisional adjustment, which is now being carried out urgently due to the difficult parking conditions in the area, but which was already being considered, vehicle drivers are asked to take the necessary precautions and care to leave space (about 1.20 meters) for pedestrians to circulate safely on the sidewalks, especially those in wheelchairs or pushing baby carriages."

But the 1.20 meters, the minimum legal width of a sidewalk in neighborhood streets (Decree-Law no. 163), are rarely complied with, as can be seen on site. Many drivers put their cars up against the walls of the houses more than is necessary, perhaps for fear of being scratched on the side of their vehicles facing the road. On the other hand, there are other obstacles on the sidewalks, such as garbage cans, which make the neighborhood more difficult to access. The result is that it's better to walk along the road, where the maximum speed allowed is 40 km/h - even if you're in a residential area.

In any case, the Junta de Freguesia believes that legalized parking on the sidewalk is a temporary measure while they work on a definitive solution. It was with this in mind that Fernando Ribeiro Rosa, President of the Junta, called the residents of the neighborhood to a public session last Thursday evening, April 5, in the auditorium of the Centro Social de Belém. It was a six-hour session that lasted well into the night. Ribeiro Rosa reiterated that the Junta had to "to take a provisional and urgent measure because the Municipal Police have started fining people" and has always parked on the sidewalks of Restelo. The mayor regretted not having had any answers from the Medina-led council about this situation and criticized the neighbors' proposal for "take away half the parking lots"This is only true if you look at the three streets.

Gonçalo Matos, coordinator of Vizinhos de Belém, once again presented the residents' group's proposal, stressing that "there's no point in ignoring the fact that there are different opinions on this situation and that there's only one way forward, which is what we're doing, and that's consensus". Gonçalo explained that the study that came out of the Neighbors of Bethlehem was made with "residents of the neighborhood and only with residents of the neighborhood" and that, although it doesn't represent everyone, "it represents the stakeholders who have shown a willingness to contribute" to this issue. "These are just contributions from citizens. It's not an administrative decision or an opinion. It's an idea that can be used, a well-intentioned contribution focused on the future"he said, adding that understands the measure now taken by the Junta as "transitional measure"while there is no consensus between the population, the Council and the City Council, for "to stop the enormous friction that existed with people on a daily basis". "We expressed our agreement in the expectation that the path will continue."

At the end of the public session, Gonçalo had a "small victory"A consensus was reached between the Parish Council and Lisbon City Council, represented at the meeting by both the Municipal Mobility Department and the Council responsible for this area. to move forward with vertical and horizontal parking signs, outside the sidewalk, in a part of the Restelo neighborhoodThis will be done on Rua Duarte Pacheco Pereira and Rua Soldados da Índia, two of the crossroads; and also on the whole of Rua Dom Francisco de Almeida and its respective squares (Damão, Diu and Malacca squares, and the circular Rua Fernando Lopes de Castanheda, which flows into this other street). The aim will be to get cars off the sidewalks on these streets, which in the particular case of Rua Dom Francisco de Almeida will be very positive as it gives access to EB Bairro do Restelo and other educational establishments.

If the neighbors moving forward as designed, 175 spaces will be created on Rua Dom Francisco de Almeida (including the squares), 154 on Rua Duarte Pacheco Pereira and 229 on Rua Soldados da Índia. Counts carried out by residents on these streets identified 242 stalled vehicles. That leaves - for now, at least - the three streets where parking on the sidewalk has now been legalized and where, in order to clarify the 1.20 metres of channel space, markings can be made on the sidewalk (similar to what has been done on Avenida Almirante Gago Coutinho, between Areeiro and Alvalade, or in other areas of the city).

Gonçalo believes that we shouldn't wait for a major redevelopment of the public spaces in the Restelo neighborhood, not only because of the financial cost that this would represent, but essentially because there are other areas in the parish of Belém and in the city of Lisbon that have higher priorities and money is scarce. The public session promoted by the Junta was marked by many voices against the solution implemented, but also some in favor. One of the fears that people raised most was that it was now confusing to understand where you can park on the sidewalk with two wheels and where you can't. Fernando Ribeiro Rosa said that there was nothing he could do about it and that it was legal for people to look at the signs. Fernando Ribeiro Rosa said that there was nothing he could do about this and that what is signposted is legal and people should look at the signs.

Throughout the Restelo area and most of the parish of Belém, there is no EMEL and no effective parking regulations, and it is common to see cars on sidewalks. In the last 10 years, EMEL's area of operation has increased by more than 100%, now covering the entire central area of the city, an expansion which "has brought frankly positive results for the quality of public space in the neighborhoods"as the Lisbon City Council points out in State of Spatial Planning Report 2022. The neighboring municipality of Oeiras has been expanding its charging areas in the Algés and Miraflores areasThis could put even more pressure on Restelo.