CUVI insists threat of tolls’ return remains as long as gantries left standing
From tomorrow, seven highways turned into paying motorways 14 years ago will return to being free of charge, among them the Algarve’s A22/ Via do Infante. But until toll charging infrastructure, namely the ‘gantries’, are dismantled, CUVI (the commission of road users that fought the tolls from the outset) believes the threat of their ‘reactivation’ will always be there.
“We must keep fighting”, João Vasconcelos, CUVI spokesperson and former MP for the Algarve has told reporters. “The fight is not over yet. From now on, CUVI will keep demanding that the gantries be dismantled – because we don’t know if tomorrow we won’t have another government that, claiming difficulties for the country, will be tempted to reinstate the tolls”.
Vasconcelos’ perspective must be seen as one from someone who worked closely with governments: he knows exactly what politicians are capable of. Indeed, he referred to a resolution passed in parliament nearly five years ago “which stipulated the elimination of tolls on the Via do Infante while the EN125 was not fully requalified” – yet this never happened: the EN 125 was not fully requalified, yet the tolls remained in place.
Thus, for CUVI, tomorrow is not a moment in which to relax on any laurels. The commission wants full public disclosure on how much the government is paying the highway’s public-private partnership as a result of tolls’ abolition (the government has suggested this decision will cost it over €430 million in lost revenue); it demands “adequate and rigorous maintenance” of the road into the future, and it is upping its fight to include improvements that still have not been done to the EN 125 – namely much-needed resurfacing between Olhão and Vila Real de Santo António.
Yes, tomorrow will be a moment for celebration – a honking fest has been scheduled at entrances and exits to the highway between 10am and 6pm – but after that, it is back to the fight.
To this end a forum has been scheduled in Loulé on January 11 (to outline strategies), and CUVI says it intends to change its working name to the Commission for Users of the Via do Infante and EN125.
Recalling the last 14 years of struggle as “interesting” and ultimately victorious, João Vasconcelos also highlighted the damage the tolls have brought to the region (“many deaths, a lot of suffering, families destroyed…”).
Further north, Luís Garra, the spokesman for the platform that fought against tolls on the A23 and A25, is not quite so apparently concerned with gantries, for now. But he is aware that the current government was actually AGAINST the abolition of tolls (they were only pushed through by ‘union’ of PS Socialists and CHEGA): “We are not free from the possibility that a change of forces in parliament could result in the intention to return to paying tolls”, he admits.
