Tolls have been charged on the A22 since 2011
Algarve MPs for the Socialist Party (PS) are calling for an end to tolls on the country’s formerly free motorways (SCUTs), including the region’s A22 motorway.
The draft bill proposed by the PS parliamentary group also includes motorways for which there are “no safe or quality alternative routes”.
The proposal is endorsed by Jamila Madeira, Jorge Botelho and Luís Graça, the party’s three Algarve MPs, and follows the Socialists’ campaign promise that their first measure, had they won the elections, would have been to eliminate the tolls.
As PS Algarve points out, Socialist governments reduced the prices of the tolls on the A22 motorway by 60% since 2015, when driving from Lagos to Vila Real de Santo António (or vice-versa) cost €11.60. Driving the entirety of the motorway today costs €4.65.
“After a significant reduction in toll costs and with the improvement of the country’s financial conditions, evidenced by the budget surplus recorded at the end of 2023, the elimination of tolls on the Via do Infante and the former SCUTs in the interior is a fair measure,” the Algarve MPs add.
The abolishment of the A22 motorway tolls has been one of the Algarve’s hot topics ever since the tolls were introduced on December 8, 2011. Anti-toll groups such as CUVI have questioned their legality, pointing out that they should never have been introduced on ex-SCUTs – roads which were paid for with EC funds and were never intended to be tolled.
