Further restrictions on these tourist vehicles likely to follow
Tuk-tuks are now banned from entering 337 streets in Lisbon. In a statement accompanying an order from the City Council, mayor Carlos Moedas said that tuk tuks’ “many excesses” have forced the municipality to “assume zero tolerance for some of the areas that have been heavily massacred with an unregulated presence of this type of vehicle”.
Other prohibitions, including on the number of tuk tuks authorised for business in Lisbon, seem likely to follow.
Moedas stresses: “We argued that the municipality should have other means of controlling the scale of the operation in the city and, specifically, the maximum number of “tuk-tuks” that Lisbon can support for circulation, but this step, which is now coming into force, is going in the right direction”.
To enforce the new measures, EMEL – Empresa Municipal de Mobilidade e Estacionamento de Lisboa (Lisbon Municipal Mobility and Parking Company) is reinforcing its contingent with 62 inspectors, “who will now support enforcement actions of the Lisbon Municipal Police, which will lead operations on the ground”.
The Baixa Pombalina, Encosta do Castelo, Nossa Senhora do Monte, and Belém are the main areas to be policed. ND
source material: LUSA
