São Brás de Alportel’s mayor, Marlene Guerreiro, headed to Lisbon on Monday to demand from the government swift intervention on Portugal’s famous EN2 road.
The EN2 stretches nearly 740km from Chaves in the north to Faro in the south and is often nicknamed Portugal’s Route 66, having even won ‘International Route of the Year’ at the prestigious 2025 Mototourism Awards (Premios Mototurismo) in Spain this year.
But the reality is the road has fallen into disrepair in the Algarve – even forcing the closure, since June, of a stretch of road linking Barranco do Velho to São Brás, due to safety concerns. The closure has forced locals and visitors to take “significant detours”, causing a “serious impact” on local and regional mobility. Meanwhile, badly needed repairs to the stretch linking the town to the A22 also remain on the backburner, the municipal council laments in a statement to the press. These repairs are considered “essential to overcome serious road safety issues and improve the attractiveness of the municipalities, as well as its economic and social development.”
Desperate for action, mayor Guerreiro travelled to the capital – accompanied by councillor Mónica Inácio and the municipality’s road-infrastructure engineer – to meet with Minister of Infrastructure, Miguel Pinto Luz, and push for “clear deadlines” and “quick responses” from the government.
According to the council, the minister presented a tentative timeline: the works needed to reopen the northern section are awaiting approval from the Finance Ministry, with the intervention expected to take around six months once green-lit. Guerreiro warned that the overused municipal road 1202 will also need repairs once normal circulation is restored – a point the ministry agreed to take into account.
As for the long-awaited major upgrade of the EN2 to the south – including its crucial connection to the A22 – the minister said the government intends to launch the tender in the third quarter of 2026, with construction slated for 2027. However, progress depends on resolving a legal dispute with the Algarve Litoral concession, which currently blocks any work on that section.
Guerreiro pledged that the municipality will “not hold back on any effort” to push the process forward, adding that São Brás “cannot continue to wait for solutions that are fundamental for the present and future of the municipality.”
The meeting also touched on a possible swap of road jurisdictions, such as transferring an urban stretch of the EN2 to the municipality for quicker maintenance, while handing part of the EN270 to Estradas de Portugal for improved management.
The urgent need for repairs on the EN2 – the largest national road in Portugal and the only one in Europe that crosses a country in its entire length – has been one of the local council’s main concerns in recent months.
