The Lisboa Brief, Week of 24 October 2026: The Council Votes the Scooters Out, Two Strikes Collide on 30 October, and a 688 Million Euro Plan for Oriente

Lisbon voted this week to take every shared e-scooter off its streets. Also this week: three transport strikes stack up for the end of the month, a 688 million euro plan for the Gare do Oriente went out for comment, and police cleared the housing camp on the Rossio. Remember that the clocks go back an hour tonight.

The Scooters Go

The council approved Carlos Moedas's proposal to suspend the shared scooter system on Wednesday 21 October. The vote was taken point by point. According to Lusa, as carried by Observador, the PSD, the CDS-PP and the independents in the mayor's team voted for it; the PS, the BE and the PCP abstained; and the Livre and the two IL councillors, who sit in Moedas's own coalition, voted against. The council is ending its January 2023 agreement with the operators, who now have 60 days to remove every scooter from the city, which takes it to about the end of the year. After that the council can remove them itself and bill the operators. Privately owned scooters are not affected. The deal with the PCP and the BE also commits the council to more Gira bikes and stations, and to a soft-mobility regulation within a year. The Livre warns that tearing up the agreement could expose the city to compensation claims.

Three Strikes Stack Up

Friday 30 October is the hard day. Metro workers stop from 05:00 to 10:00 on Wednesday 28 and Friday 30 October, and on the 30th CP's conductors and ticket-office staff strike for 24 hours. CP lists every service from the Alfa Pendular to Lisbon's suburban trains as affected, and warns of knock-on effects on the 29th and 31st. As of Thursday no minimum service had been set for either strike. CP will refund or swap long-distance and regional tickets; its line is 210 900 032. South of the river, the Metro Sul do Tejo is in the middle of a strike that runs until Tuesday 27 October, with only Line 3 guaranteed, from 07:00 to 09:00 and 17:00 to 19:00.

Looking further ahead, from Sunday 8 November late-night Cascais line trains that now terminate at Oeiras will run to São Pedro do Estoril while Oeiras station is rebuilt.

Rails, Runways and the East

Infraestruturas de Portugal wants to add three tracks at the Gare do Oriente, build a new Chelas station linked to the Olaias Metro stop and rebuild Marvila and Braço de Prata, at about 688 million euros. Work would take up to 43 months, with night closures and 48-hour weekend shutdowns. Anyone can comment on participa.pt until 25 November.

At the airport, northbound departures are due to switch to a new track by the end of the year. The ministry says that will take about 35,000 residents of Loures and Vila Franca de Xira out of the noise, though no map has been published. For the new airport at Alcochete, the government has told ANA that the state need not pay for land expropriations or further clean-up of the firing range, and ANA disagrees.

Housing: the Rossio Cleared

Shortly before 06:00 on Tuesday, riot police broke a human chain on the Rossio, took down the housing protest tents and detained several people, after three warnings. The camp had stayed since Saturday, past the 00:30 legal limit for open-air gatherings.

Low-income residents of Campolide can now ask the parish to pay up to 60 percent of small home repairs, capped at 2,500 euros a job, for roofs, damp, wiring or bathroom fittings. In Loures, the tourist tax rises from 1.50 to 2.50 euros a night from about 20 November, paid at check-in.

In the Courts

A Lisbon judge sent 56 of the 59 accused in the Tutti Frutti case to trial, among them the former Estrela and Santo António parish heads Luís Newton and Vasco Morgado, in a case over parish contracts allegedly traded for political support. José Sócrates went on trial again on Monday, this time for money laundering. And the Lisbon Central Criminal Court acquitted three NRP Mondego sailors of breaching state secrecy. Everyone accused in these cases is presumed innocent unless convicted.

Health and the Roads

The DGS counts five measles cases in Lisboa e Vale do Tejo since 6 October, three of them imported by travellers with no vaccination record. Check your MMR record if you are unsure. The GNR clocked a company Mercedes at an average of 292 km/h on the Vasco da Gama bridge, the fastest the cameras have recorded there. In Sintra, police walled up a shopping centre in Tapada das Mercês after finding a frail 71-year-old man and a woman living in its shops. The social emergency line is 144.

Also This Week

The 1961 liner Funchal, laid up beside the Parque das Nações since 2015, has been sold for scrap to Turkish breakers. Lisbon won Europe's leading city and cruise destination titles at the World Travel Awards. Brazilians vote in their presidential runoff tomorrow, from 08:00 to 17:00 Lisbon time, after the clock change; check your registration on the TSE site before you go. The clocks go back at 02:00, and tomorrow's sunset in Lisbon is at 17:45.

On in Lisbon

Doclisboa, the documentary festival, has its last two days at the Cinema São Jorge, Culturgest, the Cinema Ideal and the Cinemateca. The Drawing Room Lisboa fair brings more than 20 galleries and over 70 artists to the Sociedade Nacional de Belas-Artes on Rua Barata Salgueiro, open today from 11:00 to 21:00 and tomorrow from 11:00 to 18:00 (6 to 9 euros).

MAC/CCB in Belém marks its third birthday with free entry until Sunday. Ângela Ferreira's exhibition "Here I Stand" opens with it, and Nkisi and Gonzo play tonight. In Arroios, the FLIFA independent book fair fills the Mercado de Arroios (Rua Ângela Pinto 40D) with more than 120 publishers, bookshops and collectives, today and tomorrow from 11:00 to 19:00, free.

That is the capital's week. The Lisboa Brief returns next Saturday.

Feature image: shared e-scooters parked on Avenida Almirante Reis, by Philip Mallis (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons.