Lower Coimbra: Changes cause customer breakdown in the municipal market

Othe traders of the municipal market of Coimbra complain about a breach of customers in the face of changes in circulation and public transport in Baixa, already in the street of Sofia there are people who talk about loss of older customers.

About a month after the introduction of the ‘metrobus’ to Praça da República and consequent changes in the car traffic in the downtown and in more than 20 bus lines, the merchants of the Municipal Market D. Pedro V makes a negative balance.

“There is a break,” says Lusa Dulce Espírito Santo, 42 years ago working in the market, referring that, despite some new customers, it was many more that were lost with the changes that occurred on September 10.

In that stall that sells bread, biscuits and other products, complaints come regularly from customers who find it much more difficult to reach the market, especially if they use the bus.

“No one was heard. When they came here to talk to us, everything was already decided”, he said.

Close by, Joaquina Barbeiro, who sells cheeses and curds, shoots without reservation: “They ruined everything”.

“ I even feel like saying nonsense”, says Lusa the 89-year-old woman, who believes she has lost more than half of her clients, especially the older ones, “because of the buses”.

Clarinda Fonseca, 35 years ago selling vegetables on the market, notes that “there are new faces” in the market, “but there is a lot of old face that, with the change of buses, stopped appearing”.

During the week, he observes, the impact is greater, felt mainly by older customers and the maids who passed by to fly to their home and to “their bosses”.

“Most of them are gone. They stopped having schedules and, the ones who come, come in a hurry, call me from the day before to have everything ready,” Clarinda Fonseca said, considering that changes in buses had an impact “negative, negative, negative, negative, negative”.

In the fish zone, the report is, in everything, similar.

One of the merchants points to his fish stand “so beautiful”, but no people to buy.

“It wasn’t easy, but now it’s harder,” he laments, pointing to the case of people who, moving north of the county, end up walking from the market to Arnado to take the bus.

Another store operator who did not want to be identified tells Lusa that “during the week, the business died completely”.

“ People do not come here on foot from Arnado,” he said, referring also that the transportation of purchases home does not serve those who sell meat or fish, which is not guaranteed “transport with freezer”.

Deolice Tomás, working on a fruit stand, is one of the few traders who do not notice a difference, considering that it has been “more or less the same thing”.

In the street of Sofia, which began to operate in a single sense and reserved for public transport and local accesses, there is little or no impact, except for less movement of older customers who used the bus.

“I didn’t lose or win,” says Lusa Aguinalda Amaro, owner of Sofia coffee.

After the bustle of the first week, with many curious people – “there were people who discovered Sofia’s street on September 10” – the rhythm returned to normal, notes, recognizing, however, fewer older customers passing by.

Elisabete Vilhena, owner of an antique shop on the street, confirms: “The customers who came by bus are missing”.

The employee of a store that did not want to be identified also notices the absence of regular customers “from the age group 70 years old up”.

“ They were coming and now they're not coming. They had their routines and their routes and everything was changed with little preparation and information ", said.

For Miguel Braga, trader on the same street, the movement “is worse”.

“ They shut us down the train station and now this. This city has people who decide not to come to the ground”, laments Augusta Martins, florist for 40 years on Sofia Street.