The Algarve’s notorious Via do Infante motorway – the road paid for with community funding and free-to-all comers for the first few years of its existence – is now set to see the highest price hikes for tolls from January 1.
For now it is just a news item, but reaction will not be long in coming – especially from campaigners who have been battling to redress what they see as a crime in the charging road tolls on the A22 at all.
Only last summer, the government announced price reductions of 15% on the road. Anti-toll campaigners were not impressed, pointing out that toll charges on the A22 are among the highest in the country. Not only that, the PS government initially pledged to cut prices by 50% – and before taking power, the party campaigned to abolish tolls altogether (see photo).
Now, whatever gains were ‘won’ in August 2016 look set to disappear.
According to an announcement by infrastructure authority IP, toll price increases will be 15 cents for Classe 1 vehicles, and 20 cents for all the others.
These are the ‘highest’ coming at the start of the year, reports Correio da Manhã, with other motorways facing hikes of between 5 and 10 cents.
Lisbon’s bridges too will face price hikes from between 5 and 15 cents.
Bizarrely, the Infrastructure Ministry has announced that “78% of tolls throughout the country will face no price increases at all”, while “the majority of rises are situated between 5 and 10 cents”.
The Algarve and the Douro (A7 between Póvoa de Varzim and Vila Pouca de Aguiar) are thus the only areas where tolls are set to increase beyond all others – with those in the Douro rising by up to 30% (but only by 10% for ‘light’ (Classe 1/ 2) vehicles).
UPDATE:
Since publishing its story on the ‘highest toll price increases’, Correio da Manhã has slightly amended the thrust of its text, saying increases are only likely at two gantries on the trans-Algarve A22. But just to add to the confusion, the paper says that the Ministry of Infrastructures and Planning has failed to indicate where the gantries are located. In the meantime, reaction to the news of any kind of hikes at all has been predictably damning.
