To encourage residents to swap the street for underground or built-up parking, Lisbon City Council has launched a night tariff of €22/month, available in 36 of the city's car parks. However, without changes to EMEL's ticketing policy, the measure may not ease the pressure of on-street parking.
It's at night that you feel the pressure of parking on Lisbon's streets, particularly in areas where residential buildings are located., The buildings, built many decades ago, have no garages. But while there seems to be no room on the streets and parking lots are improvised on curves and crosswalks, there are underground parking lots that are underused.
To encourage the use of Lisbon's existing parking lots at night by city residents, Lisbon City Council has created a new tariff offer in 36 EMEL and Telpark parking lots, covering around 3,500 spaces. In practice, there is now a nightly fee of €22/month, which allows those who live in Lisbon to park from 6pm in one of the participating car parks and leave their car until 10am the following day. At weekends and on public holidays, you can leave your car parked there all day.
The 36 parks in which this new offer can be found are spread across 14 boroughs, ensuring adequate coverage of the city with the new offer:
| Park | Location | Responsible |
|---|---|---|
| Campo Grande, Alvalade | Mário Soares Garden | EMEL |
| University, Alvalade | Professor Gama Pinto Avenue | EMEL |
| Fancy Couple, Areeiro | Casal Vistoso Municipal Sports Complex | EMEL |
| Manuel Gouveia, Areeiro | Manuel Gouveia Street | EMEL |
| Alameda, Areeiro | Alameda Dom Afonso Henriques | Telpark |
| Avenue of Rome, Areeiro | Fernando Pessa Garden | Telpark |
| London Square, Areeiro | London Square | Telpark |
| Alves Redol, Areeiro | Rua Alves Redol | Telpark |
| Mártires da Pátria Field, Arroios | Field of the Martyrs of the Fatherland | Telpark |
| Saldanha Residence, Arroios | Fontes Pereira de Melo Avenue | Telpark |
| Rego, Avenidas Novas | Soeiro Pereira Gomes Street | EMEL |
| Bern, Avenidas Novas | Rua Beneficiência/Rua Marquês Sá da Bandeira | Telpark |
| Valbom, Avenidas Novas | Avenida Conde Valbom | Telpark |
| Marquis of Pombal, Avenidas Novas | Marquês de Pombal Square | Telpark |
| Saldanha, Avenidas Novas | Rua Latino Coelho | Telpark |
| Arco do Cego, Avenidas Novas | João Crisóstomo Avenue | Telpark |
| Maria Cristina, Avenidas Novas | Avenida António Augusto de Aguiar | Telpark |
| Military College, Benfica | Cosme Damião Square | EMEL |
| Correia Teles, Campo de Ourique | Correia Teles Street | EMEL |
| Campolide, Campolide | Avenida Conselheiro Fernando de Sousa | Telpark |
| Lumiar, Lumiar | Republic of Turkey Square | EMEL |
| Telheiras East, Lumiar | Rua Professor Eduardo Araújo Coelho | EMEL |
| Telheiras West, Lumiar | Rua Professor Vieira de Almeida | EMEL |
| Calçada do Combro, Mercy | Calçada do Combro | EMEL |
| Oceanarium, Parque das Nações | Rua dos Cruzados | Telpark |
| Campo das Cebolas, Santa Maria Maior | Campo das Cebolas | EMEL |
| Chão do Loureiro, Santa Maria Maior | Calçada do Marquês de Tancos | EMEL |
| Cruise Terminal, Santa Maria Maior | Infante Dom Henrique Avenue | Telpark |
| Sousa Pinto, Santo António | Rua Sousa Pinto | EMEL |
| Alexandre Herculano, Santo António | Mouzinho da Silveira Street | Telpark |
| Alto dos Moinhos, São Domingos de Benfica | João Chagas Street | EMEL |
| Combatants, São Domingos de Benfica | Avenida Forças Armadas/Avenida dos Combatentes | EMEL |
| Cosme Damião, São Domingos de Benfica | Avenida Machado Santos | EMEL |
| Luz Road, São Domingos de Benfica | Luz Road | EMEL |
| Seven Rivers, São Domingos de Benfica | Marechal Humberto Delgado Square | Telpark |
| Grace, São Vicente | Rua da Voz do Operário | EMEL |
You can apply for a night's leave onlinethrough EMEL website or the Telpark website. You can find out more about the nightly deals here.
“These 3,500 spaces have been created to make parking easier for Lisbon residents. We want residents to have the option of parking safely, and with the convenience of having a guaranteed space, at a daily price of 70 cents, cheaper than a coffee”, said Filipe Anacoreta Correia, Deputy Mayor of Lisbon and responsible for Mobility. “What's more, in this way we're helping to get cars off the streets.”
However, anyone wishing to take advantage of this nightly service will not have to hand in their car's EMEL badge. In other words, you can continue to park on the street in your area of residence (and in an adjoining area), which does not guarantee, contrary to what Anacoreta Correia says, the removal of cars from the street. On the other hand, since only night parking is included in this €22/month fee, residents are encouraged to take their cars out and use them during the day.
“The measure would have to be accompanied by fair pricing for EMEL tickets”
Experts in urban mobility, interviewed by LPP, are reluctant to accept the new measure of overnight parking permits in parking lots. “Not only does it feed the paradigm of everyday car use, but it sends out the message that this is appropriate and expected”, Rita Castel'Branco points out. “In this case, we're talking about using existing car parks, which could be a good idea. However, in order to be beneficial and effectively remove cars from the streets (as is claimed), this measure would have to be accompanied by the fair pricing of EMEL's tickets - which will have to happen sooner or later.”
For Rita Castel'Branco, first of all, the first parking permit per dwelling shouldn't be free and subsequent permits should be more expensive. “A parking space takes up 10 m2 of public space that belongs to everyone and there is no reason why this common space should be occupied by a private individual for free. The terraces pay for the space they occupy - even when they occupy a parking space, and this occupation costs them around 2-3 thousand euros a year, depending on the parish; so do the construction containers; why shouldn't a car pay?”, says the expert.
According to Rita, a “fair pricing” parking not only allows “reduce the pressure” on this, how to diversify the uses of public space - “for example, with terraces and green spaces” - and also “financing alternative modes of mobility”, She has also been working on a number of projects, such as walking, cycling and public transport. The expert has been paying close attention to the work carried out in Paris, a city that “is currently removing 70,000 parking spaces from the streets in order to widen sidewalks, implement a cycling network, close school streets so that children can play in them and benefit from clean air during school hours”. “Here we continue to go the other way, as if good practices that work in cities all over the world (with the most diverse scales and characteristics) wouldn't only work here”, regrets.
“Car ownership and use is already highly subsidized, if we consider its social and environmental costs. Continuing to increase these subsidies, with public money, is neither sustainable nor even a sign of good governance”, Mário Alves considers the measure of nightly park visits to be yet another mobility measure on the back burner. “Unfortunately, we will see many measures like this floated in many chambers across the country in an election year.”
According to the Lisbon City Council, the The nightly parking fee measure is part of a broader strategy by the municipality to prioritize parking in parks, to the detriment of parking in public spaces.. In recent months, the municipality has increased the number of 24-hour parking permits for residents in EMEL and Telpark parks by 50%. And, in the case of EMEL parks, standardized the price of these contracts (called R24) to €46.30, This translated into a discount for those who live in the city of more than 50%, when comparing the amount of the rent for residents with the amount of the rent for the general public.
Parking on Lisbon's streets, however, is still very cheap and the result is parking lots that cost millions but are underused. The Alameda car park is a good example of this: with five underground levels, the fifth is closed and the fourth is practically empty. This is on the edge of two of Lisbon's most densely populated parishes - Arroios and Penha de França - where the idea of lack of parking is repeated ad nauseum, and local politicians scramble to find solutions. The point is that, with the policy of one parking permit per room, If you want to park in the Medina, parking in the street is extremely cheap. And if you have a second car, you can get a second badge for just €4.50/month; a third car costs €11/month. And if a family still has an electric car, they can have a fourth car on the road, free of charge. If residents can park 24/7 in EMEL's car parks for €46.30/month, having a guaranteed space in Telpark's car parks means spending €50 to €100 a month; in some cases even more than €200.
There are now 36 car parks where you pay €22/month to park only at night. Will the measure increase the use of these parks? Rita Castel'Branco has no doubts: “What's being done at the moment is simply to increase the number of free parking spaces, or nearly so, missing the opportunity to use this measure as a way of mitigating the political cost of charging on the day it arrives.”
“At the same time, public parking lots are being built with a view to increasing Lisbon's parking pool to 9,000 spaces by 2027. There's nothing against parking in buildings, as long as it serves to take cars off the streets and not to increase Lisbon's parking capacity.”, points out.
