The €8 million refurbishment of the Guadiana International bridge started today with a completion date of 525 days that includes down time during peak periods.
Pedro Marques, the Minister of Planning and Infrastructures, was at today's ceremony to start the project, as well as Iñigo de la Serna, the Spanish Minister of Public Works and Guilherme d'Oliveira Martins, the Portuguese Secretary of State for Infrastructure.
The work will be done by Soares da Costa and includes replacing the expansion joints, the installation of a traffic control system, the retensioning of the cables that hold the bridge up with some of them being fitted with shock absorbers.
Cracked concrete will be sorted out and the surface re-laid but the bridge should remain open at all times, even though there will be traffic control for prolonged periods.
Marques said the bridge linking the two countries that opened in 1991, “is central to the relationship between Portugal and Spain."
In a heartfelt moment of silence, the party observed a one minute silence in memory of the victims of the London terrorist attack on Sunday.
The bill for the work will be divided equally between Portugal and Spain.
As for the increasingly choked EN125, Pedro Marques said the Algarve’s road users will just have to be patient, that the essential work will be completed by 30 June and that the road is “very important for mobility in the Algarve.”
According to Marques, by the end of June the road works "are essentially completed" - political speak for "they will not be completed" - so that "at the very peak of summer the road will be better equipped for mobility and safety for the people."
As for the start of the eastern section, "it remains our firm intention to launch, by the end of this year, three or four interventions, which are the more urgent, from Olhão to the border," claimed Marques, “but only after completing the negotiation with the concessionaire.”
Already the EN125 through Olhão by car can add 30 minutes to journey times and Marques' plan to put in a roundabout will do nothing to ease the weight of traffic.
The long-awaited Olhão by-pass is still on the drawing board after decades and environmental impact assessment has not even been started, let alone agreed.
The route had 'a preliminary study contest,' in January then "a follow-up process will be undertaken, taking between three and four months. After this phase, there will be Environmental Impact Studies and then the Execution Project, a phase that will be carried out by Infraestruturas de Portugal internally, to speed up the process" and finally, according to marques, the actual construction work for the new bypass "will begin and end in 2019," a pipe dream date that locals put down to a range of locally available psychotropics.
See also: EN125 - Olhão's mayor Pina delighted at new city bypass
