Macário Correia, former president of the Chamber of Tavira (PSD), spoke this Sunday, March 17th, regarding the “Sustainable Mobility Plan of the City of Tavira”, showing that he is on the side of the citizens movement and defending that «the enjoyment of public space should be based on people and not cars».
«The document aims to destroy Tavira. It destroys the 3 gardens and squares in Baixa (Coreto, Corredoura and Alagoa), promotes the tarring of the only open space (Largo da Feira) and destroys the Posto Agrário space in the worst location, in addition to other proposals in the domain of dizziness. Whoever writes the document never resorts anywhere to basic traffic counts (TMD) in studies of this type", accuses Macário Correia in an email sent to the citizens' movement and to which the Sul Informação had access.
The former mayor of Tavira also says that the company shows «unaware of what is happening in the modern world in which the enjoyment of public space must be based on people and not cars. They are 100 years behind, going back to the initial era of the automobile. It doesn't make sense to destroy public spaces from the city's memory to put cars in».
The controversy arose after the Tavira Chamber announced that it was underway «the public consultation process for the Sustainable Mobility Plan of the City of Tavira (PMSCT)» and said that he urged «all interested parties» to send contributions by March 21st, to the email [email protected].
After analyzing the plan, the Citizens' movement for CEAT and Hortas Urbanas de Tavira and Ecotopia Activa accused the Chamber of having a mobility plan that envisages "destroying gardens in downtown Tavira and tearing up a road in the Agricultural Experimentation Center of Tavira ( CEAT)', but, heard by our newspaper, Ana Paula Martins, president of the municipality, guaranteed that there is no approved plan, just a proposal, made by a company, «which has not yet been validated», and the executive's desire to listen to the population.
Just like the Citizens for CEAT movement and Ecotopia Activa, Macário Correia also criticizes «the reason for an eight-day consultation without publicity», challenging the current executive to «promote a public session with the said company, duly publicized, and where they are 5 minutes will be given to anyone who wants to speak”.
«I'm signing up now and that's enough to embarrass anyone who writes absurd things like the ones you can read in this famous plan», reads the email from the former mayor, who reinforces that «it doesn't make sense to destroy public spaces of memory of the city to put cars in” and that “the strategic and philosophical assumptions of the said Plan are an absolute contradiction with what is thought and done around the world”.
«I didn't imagine that it would be possible to spend money from our taxes at this time to have 98 pages of text of such poor quality», he concludes.
In statements to the Sul Informação, on Friday, Ana Paula Martins highlighted that the decision to put the company's proposal out for public consultation was taken «in the name of transparency» and in order to give the population the opportunity to make suggestions, which will then be «delivered to the company, so that a new proposal can be presented”.
Thus, the municipality clarified that it will be based on this work that the Chamber will approve a first version of the plan, which will be placed in Public Consultation, as provided for in the law.
«From here on, relevant contributions will be integrated and a final version will be approved, which will be submitted for approval to the Municipal Assembly», Ana Paula Martins told our newspaper.
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