Caldas Xavier Street, in Faro, near the Bom João district, will become a “Living Street”: a green area that will be used for socializing and outdoor activities.
The local authority was the big winner of the Living Streets project, an initiative that aims to create places for socializing and experimenting in public spaces hitherto occupied by automobiles.
Within the scope of this project, the first living street de Faro will be created on Caldas Xavier street, in the neighborhood of Bom João, with the transformation of this large space, which nowadays serves exclusively for car parking, into a green area that will be used for socializing and outdoor activities.
The results of the national competition have now been announced by Oeste Sustentável – Regional Agency for Energy and Environment of the West, a partner entity responsible for receiving applications in Portugal for this project, which is funded by the EUKI (European Climate Initiative) program of the Federal Ministry of Germany's Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.
Besides Faro, which obtained the highest score of the 13 proposals submitted, the Municipality of Óbidos, which had the second most voted proposal, will also receive an amount of 20 thousand euros to be able to implement its project. Interventions should take place between December and October 2021.
The objective is to return Caldas Xavier Street «to citizens and residents, promoting neighborhood relations and a sense of belonging. After gathering opinions from residents and counting on their active participation in the design of the final project, an ideal green area will be created for socializing, eating, playing, studying, working, reading, cycling or breathing fresh air».
«For this purpose, this “Living Street” will thus be equipped with various municipal equipment – such as tables, benches, flower boxes, swings, hammocks or bicycle park – which will be produced, whenever possible, using reusable and recyclable materials », says the municipality.
According to the Chamber of Faro, «so that the population can enjoy this space with more quality and safety, on weekends road traffic will be very restricted there, safeguarding access to existing garages».
The intention is that this first “Living Street” of Faro – whose concept, linked to a new urbanism model, was born in 2013, in the Belgian city of Ghent, by the hands of inhabitants and merchants, and has since been replicated in several European cities – may serve as an inspiration for other arteries of the city and the county they can adopt a sustainable street model, allowing to reduce visual, noise and atmospheric pollution, in addition to creating an opportunity for people to leave their homes and spend quality time in a green and pleasant space.
Comments