The Union of Parishes (UF) of Moncarapacho and Fuzeta is outraged at having been excluded from the expansion of the urban transport network, approved by the Municipal Assembly of Olhão.
In a note sent to the newsrooms, the UF says that this is an “attitude of disrespect towards the citizens of the Union of Parishes of Moncarapacho and Fuzeta”.
The proposal presented foresees the extension of the route that reached the Municipal Stadium to Pechão (3,1 km more), as well as the extension of the line that served the Cemetery 16 de Junho, until Sítio da Igreja, in Quelfes.
For this Union of Parishes, it is “incomprehensible that the future route that will reach Quelfes is not extended to Moncarapacho (another 4,2 kilometers), even because the study that accompanied the proposal highlighted that the two locations were served by the same routes of EVA, which is logical because Quelfes is located between Olhão and Moncarapacho».
«If the number of routes is the same, why did they consider that only the population of Quelfes needed more connections to Olhão than Moncarapacho, which even has more inhabitants? And why did they extend to Pechão, which is served by an almost identical number of careers?”, asks the UF.
António Pina, mayor, explained, in a press release sent by the local authority., that «the most remote areas of the city's urban network, such as, for example, Moncarapacho and Fuzeta, are already reasonably served by public passenger transport».
"What was lacking, until now, was an optimized network within the urban fabric, which allows for the most efficient connection possible, in a logic of articulation between the various services available to the population", defended the mayor.
Even so, the arguments do not convince the União de Freguesias de Moncarapacho and Fuzeta, which emphasizes the cost of tickets.
«Very relevant is the difference between the price charged on EVA trips (between Moncarapacho and Olhão) and the Municipality (on any trip on urban routes): €3,40 and €1.00 (tickets purchased on board), respectively. By not extending the service to Moncarapacho, the inhabitants of our village – who only have access to Eva's buses – will have higher costs to travel to Olhão. And the distance cannot be taken into account, because in the extension of the service to Pechão it is practically the same, between Quelfes and Moncarapacho», he says.
Even in terms of costs for the Municipality, the increase, if the Urban Public Passenger Transport Service from Olhão reached Moncarapacho, was “residual”.
According to the UF, the «proposal by the Executive of the Socialist Party of the Municipality of Olhão goes against what is recommended by the study that accompanied it, which indicates that the restructuring of the urban transport network should take into account the mobility needs of the population, as well as the role of this area at the county scale, adding "the importance of trips between parishes in the county, which, in the case of trips to Olhão, may constitute potential trips in the future urban transport network".
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