Gaia House votes limit of 30 km/h on Avenida da República

A House of Gaia votes on Tuesday to implement a maximum traffic limit of 30 kilometers per hour (30km/h) on the northern section of Avenida da República, which already has two roads where there was a cycle path before.

According to a proposal that Lusa had access to, on Tuesday the vote will be “announcing the municipal traffic postures on Avenida da República, in sections with segregated bike path”, as well as the approval of traffic postures “to complement the predicted horizontal signage” in the “implementation of two roads on Avenida da República”, which has already been carried out several weeks ago.

In question is a section between the streets of Rocha Leão, next to Jardim do Morro, and Rua de Padua Correia, next to João de Deus metro station, which will take new vertical signage to indicate the limit of 30 km/h.

This is “a measure of a preventive nature and appropriate to the characteristics of the waste, namely the reduced width of the roads, contributing to the strengthening of road safety conditions on site”.

On May 8th, six months after the start of the removal of the bike path, the House of Gaia told Lusa that “soon” the avenue will have “a lane and a bus lane, so the safety of users is guaranteed, the prohibition of abusive parking, as well as the improvement of urban logistics, whether in the service of deliveries to trade or the transport of patients”.

He also stated that the abusive parking “did not normalize” and “is being fought daily and monitored by the Municipal Police and other authorities”.

In the proposal that will vote on Tuesday is not identified the implementation of Bus tracks in the segment concerned of the avenue.

On November 8, 2025, municipal officials of Gaia began to remove the pilares from the bicycle lane of Avenida da República, the main of the city, painting over the lines that delimited it and that, with the wear, were reappearing.

After a restraining order that interrupted the removal, the process was completed in March, but the paintings remained for a few more months, until they were completely removed a few weeks ago, and the new horizontal sign was already painted.

The implementation of two car tracks on Avenida da República was one of the electoral promises of Luís Filipe Menezes, elected by the PSD/CDS-PP/IL coalition.

The creation of the bike lane on Avenida da República was announced in May 2024 by Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues (PS), former mayor, as a “security measure”, since the circulation of bicycles and scooters already existed, but without protected delimitation, and as a way to control the abusive parking in that artery.

The highway of Avenida da República, built in 2024 and removed in 2025 and 2026, cost 92.6 thousand euros, according to the Base portal, and did not receive European funds, after an application from the municipality was withdrawn already in the current mandate.

In April, the Mubi – Association for Urban Mobility on Bicycles said that Gaia “does not want to be a city of the 21st century” and is in a “total setback”, by removing a bike lane in urban areas, considering that the signal that Gaia’s executive is giving “is that, instead of reducing dependence on the automobile, the executive wants to strengthen it”, pointing out that the withdrawal of the bikeway on a avenue of services and trade like that of the Republic led to undue parking.

In Avenida da República, according to data provided by the House of Gaia to Mubi and to which Lusa had access, between 2019 and 2024, the collisions, hit-and-runs or tests involved 176 vehicles, most of which (116) with cars, plus 31 with motorcycles and eight with heavy goods vehicles.

There are also 21 occurrences with other unspecified vehicles, where bicycles and scooters may be included, as well as the Porto Metro itself, whose road has several crossings along the avenue.