Aveiro currently lives in a sort of political limbo, systematically ignored by the central government and unable to mobilize the local forces that contradict this trend. The examples are so many and so clear that it becomes difficult to accept that they are only coincidences or punctual failures.
By Francisco Albuquerque *
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Less than a year ago, Luís Montenegro and his entourage visited Aveiro in an electoral climate, bringing with him the usual flooding of promises: the urgent redevelopment of the hospital, the modernization of the vouga line and the resolution of the A25 tolls were presented as priority. But in peak, all these promises have evaporated.
The redevelopment of the hospital has disappeared from national priorities and the Ovar region left the local health unit of Baixo Vouga, preferring to join Santa Maria da Feira before the almost total silence of the executive of Aveirense and the intercity community, unable to establish itself in regional defense.
The case of the vouga line is perhaps the most illustrative of this negligent attitude. In a section that serves more than 20,000 inhabitants between Aveiro and axis and could be a privileged axis of mobility and economic dynamization, circulating diesel trains almost 20 km/h, in a dangerous and obsolete layout, where in some places they can almost touch the nearby houses. If it were not for the tireless effort of the civic movement by the Vouga line (MCLV), perhaps this line had already been closed and transformed into any bike path – a simplistic solution, typical of the narrow and limited vision of Portuguese public decision makers.
Also in the tolls of the25, Aveiro is the victim of a clear housekeeper incoration. While practically the entire interior sees their tolls disappear, the Aveirenses continue to pay not only their gantries (stadium and hostel-a-velle), but also contribute through their taxes to finance the tolls eliminated in other regions. All this by virtue of a distinct concession that ends only in 2031, without any local political guardian to listen to firmly.
To worsen things, the government has not even advanced with the studies of the railway connection of Aveiro-Visu-Guard-Salamanca, a priority project for the European Union within the Atlantic corridor by 2040 (RTE-T). He preferred to give in to the organized hall of the dynamic Vale d’Oro Association and bet on an alternative path, while the institutions of Avess were passively observing. If a new highway was at stake, the story would certainly be different and would have been built.
Other important projects for the city are also forgotten or indefinite: the overcrowded arrest, the obsolete structures for PSP and GNR, the judicial block promised or even the Oirase project and the areas affected by the fires are still waiting, victims of worrying and inexplicable inertia.
In the face of this scenario, accumulating uncomfortable doubts: is it a target of political faculty or simply a victim of theertia of its local representatives? Those who pay the price is always citizens, hostage for the eternal absence of concrete and effective answers.
Portugal goes back to the votes in May; It remains to be seen if local politicians will have enough memory to load, this time, the account for the broken promises in less than a year.
* Industrial Gestor.
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