The new level crossing that Infraestruturas de Portugal will install, next to the CP in Olhão, will have opening hours. This ticket will open next Monday, when the Sul Informação advanced first hand, but will be closed for the night, for security reasons.
As revealed by the Chamber of Olhão, in a press release, the railway can only be crossed between 6:30 am and 22 pm. Outside these hours, anyone who wants to circulate between Avenida da República and Avenida Bernardino da Silva will have to use the underpass.
This nocturnal closure is linked to the fact that there is now human surveillance at the site, one of the demands made by IP when it agreed to reopen this level crossing, while the works to adapt the underpass are not completed.
At the site, it is already possible to see the material that will be used to reconstruct the labyrinths, already painted in black and yellow, as is usual in this type of structure. The works should take place in the coming days and, according to IP, will be "quickly completed".
The concession of the company that manages the Portuguese railways to turn back with the closing of the level crossing only happened, moreover, because IP itself ended up admitting that the underpass does not have the minimum conditions for it to be used by people of reduced mobility, elderly and baby carriage companions.
Arguments that were repeated by citizens and mayors of Olhão, when they contested the closing of the level crossing, for over a year. In the meantime, Refer joined up with Estradas de Portugal and Infraestruturas de Portugal was born, which will have relaunched the dialogue between the Chamber of Olhão and the publicly owned company.
These contacts also served to give a boost to the underpass renovation project, which is already completed. The public tender for the execution of this work, which will be paid by IP, should be launched "still during the month of October", as revealed by the mayor of Olhão to Sul Informação.
To do so, the only thing missing is that the Municipal Assembly of Olhão «approves the multi-year commitment». The perspective is that the work will start "at the end of this year or in the beginning of 2016".
Once the requalification of the underpass is completed, the level crossing will be closed again, but the infrastructure that will now be built will remain in place, so that this alternative crossing can continue to exist in case of emergency.
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