The Initiative The Street Is Streetwhich during the summer transformed about a dozen stretches of streets and lanes in the city, converting them into pedestrian areas, creating new seating areas, but also providing terrace space for many restaurants. As we reach the end of the year, it is time to take stock, and the initial survey shows satisfied merchants.
The survey covered only the merchants of three streets - Rua dos Bacalhoeiros, Rua Nova da Trindade and Rua João das Regras, all downtown - and obtained the following results:
- 78% are satisfied or very satisfied;
- 73% have more customers;
- 83% have improved the business;
- 89% have the perception that customers are satisfied and very satisfied;
- 94% wants to maintain the program even after the pandemic;
- 67% did not lay off or put workers on Lay Off;
- 11% hired more workers;
- 44% maintained an identical schedule as before the pandemic.
According to the Público newspaper, o survey was sent to 23 establishments, and 18 of them responded, of which 16 are restaurants. Of these, eight extended the esplanade with the closing of the streets, five kept the esplanade they had and three continued without esplanade. Público spoke with the hardware store Costa & Costa, on Rua João das Regras, almost a century old, and one of the two establishments that is not a restaurant responded to the survey. "I have 30% or 40% less movement than I had."said Maria Filomena Costa to the newspaper, lamenting that loading and unloading has become more complicated because, although there is a place for it, it is recurrently used for abusive parking - it is not possible to park the car in the parking lot. "people put their cars there so they don't pay for parking".
Público, which had access to the final report of the investigation, writes that the fact that the statistical universe is so small and limited is recognized in the document as a weakness of the data - For example, traders from other streets closed to traffic, traders from nearby streets, or visiting citizens or residents were not heard.
Since this is only an "initial inquiry", some suggestions are left for the City Council: the improvement of loading and unloading, the need for sidewalk work, more lighting, total closure to traffic, and more events.
Announced in June 2020 as a response to the current pandemic and with reference to a total of 100 interventions, the initiative The Street Is Yours was who was promised. Some interventions never got off the paper, others took place with time constraints or were cancelled after one edition. The program, which aimed to increase pedestrian space in the city, ended up being limited to esplanade areas, with the exception of the intervention at the door of the IPO.
