"In 15 days, the construction of the bike path will start, both uphill and downhill, between Jardim do Morro and Santo Ovídio, and naturally downhill between Santo Ovídio and Jardim do Morro", that is, along the entire length of Avenida da República, Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues told Lusa.

According to the mayor, the bike path will occupy "part of the roadway in what is already a bottleneck, not because of the existence of a bike path, but because of the existence of illegal parking, which will obviously cease to exist".

"In addition to the delimitation that it will have in terms of painting and signage, the bike path will also have a delimitation with beacons, with fixed bollards that will be placed to separate the bike path from motor vehicles", he explained.

Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues said that the Gaia City Council had been working on the project "for several months and now, in connection with the complete rehabilitation of the asphalt surface, we will, in fact, segregate a lane for electric vehicles, scooters, bicycles, all these soft modes that are increasingly present in the city today".

"It is also a safety measure, because this traffic already exists, but as there is no segregation, we have scooters circulating on the sidewalks, bicycles in the middle of cars and overtaking cars in ways that are sometimes very risky", he added.

"From the point of view of safety and city organisation, we believe that it will be a good measure", he summed up.

The Mayor pointed out that the bike path project took into account the existence of "clinics, garages, the City Council, bus stops", something that was "duly studied".

"We have no vocation to go around fining illegal parking every day", he stressed, adding that the installation of the bike path will mean that, at some points on the avenue, a lane will be taken away from cars.

However, the mayor says that citizens "will not feel this very much, because it [the lane] was already occupied by illegal parking".

For Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues, although the consequence ends up being "preventing parking, the main intention is really to segregate, as modern cities do today, and to value soft modes of mobility".

The City Council is also trying to prevent illegal parking in the Jardim do Morro area, having installed, in recent days, temporary physical barriers that prevent the accumulation of cars next to the metro station there.

"Since April, there has been a peak, an increase in people, both locals and tourists, in the whole area of Jardim do Morro and Ponte Luís I, and what we did was to adopt a set of preventive measures to control parking", he told Lusa.

The aim is to "reduce road traffic in an area that should be occupied primarily by people, by people walking, by children playing in the garden, and therefore drastically reducing the risks of the excessive cohabitation that existed there, of cars, people driving around, in the midst of people walking".

Asked whether he would consider implementing permanent barriers to car traffic in Jardim do Morro, Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues said yes, stating that the municipality, with the temporary barriers, is "testing a model that could remain permanently in the area".

"There are parking spaces in that area. It is an area for enjoyment, for leisure, and it seems to me that there must be, increasingly, the practice of not using cars to reach the entrance to leisure areas, but, on the contrary, having a more people-friendly and less car-friendly approach there", he concluded.

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