Stop without a bench, on Avenida Fontes Pereira de Melo, in Lisbon
Many of the benches that were at bus stops in Lisbon disappeared after the works. The responsible entities say that the replacement had to do with the narrowness of the sidewalks. Is there still space for advertising posters?
There are no more banks at some bus stops in Lisboa.
Now there are backrests that don’t fit who needs it most.
In an attempt to help solve this problem that new infrastructures have brought, the group of citizens Public Infrastructure installed a wooden bench at one of the seatsless stops on Avenida Fontes Pereira de Melo.
However, a day later the bank mysteriously disappeared.
Both the Santo António Parish Council and the Lisbon City Council say they are unaware of the situation.
To the , Marta Sternberg from the Public Infrastructure collective suggests that the act was planned, since the bank “is too heavy for someone to steal on foot or by car.” “We needed two people and a van to get it to the stop,” he added.
Bench replaced with backrest
The works, which should have come to make people’s lives easier, seem to have come to make it more difficult. With the justification that there was no space on the sidewalks, the seats at some stops were replaced with backrests.
The collective does not understand why and considers that the justification for the narrowness of the tour “they are excuses”.
“Why don’t they increase the sidewalk by three centimeters, which would be enough? Or Why do they put advertising posters in the middle of the sidewalk if it is so narrow? Yesterday the bank didn’t harm anyone’s life. It just helped,” said Marta Sternberg.
“I ride the bus and use these stops. I thought that the works would improve, but then I realized that They just came to disrupt and make people’s days worse. because they took away basic things”, like the banks, said the activist.
“We didn’t make the wooden bench because we felt like it. [Os bancos] are something that we always had and which, from one year to the next, disappeared”, he said, in an interview with P3.
This wooden bench was placed by Public Infrastructure on November 20th. Throughout that day, the collective had people at the point, from 7:30 am to 8:30 pm, to record people’s reactions and opinions regarding the point.
Elderly people, crippled people, tired people, children spoke to the group… all different people, but with a common opinion: the backrests don’t fit.
In the publication, you can hear people complaining about banks
“We spoke to a man who didn’t use a crutch, but who couldn’t stand leaning on the backrest because his knee was swollen. We met a lady who couldn’t take it anymore and sat at the window of a bank and another who works all day standing in a pastry shop who told us that the bench was the only way to rest for a few minutes before getting home”, Marta recalled to P3.
The next day, mysteriously, the bank was no longer there.
Just like that stop on Avenida Fontes Pereira de Melo, after the works, in Lisbon, many of the stops were left without benches.
As Público points out, with this intervention, the collective Public Infrastructure requires Lisbon City Council to restore all seats at bus stops that were replaced with backrests.
In the Public Space Manual of the Lisbon City Council, cited by the morning newspaper, that bus stops must be, at least, equipped with “seat, waste bin, bollards, identification plate”.
