The Lisboa Brief, Week of 3 October 2026: Brazil Votes at the University, a Scooter Referendum Takes Shape, and the Cascais Line Moves Towards a Private Operator

Tomorrow the University of Lisbon becomes the biggest polling station anywhere in Brazil's presidential election. Also this week: a referendum on the city's shared scooters may be on its way, the Cascais line takes the first step towards a private operator, and the new airport has lost a terminal on paper.

Brazil Votes at the Cidade Universitária

More than 134,000 Brazilians registered in Portugal can vote on Sunday in the first round of Brazil's presidential election, and 78,833 of them are registered at the University of Lisbon. They are split across 207 sections in three buildings: the Faculty of Law (34,144 voters), the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (up to 28,892) and the Reitoria (15,797). Polls are open from 8:00 to 17:00, Lisbon time.

Check your section and room in the e-Título app before you set out, and bring an official Brazilian photo document. This year, the consulate says, Lisbon voters without one may use an official Portuguese photo document instead. Voting is compulsory for registered Brazilians aged 18 to 70, even abroad. If nobody wins outright, the second round is on 25 October.

A Referendum on Scooters?

The Automóvel Club de Portugal says it has 20,000 validated signatures from Lisbon voters for a municipal referendum on whether the city's roughly 6,000 shared e-scooters should stay on its streets. The law needs 5,000. The initiative now goes to the Assembleia Municipal, which decides whether to hold the vote, and then to the Constitutional Court before any date can be set.

Nationally, parliament backed compulsory helmets for e-scooter and e-bike riders at first reading on Wednesday. It is not law yet: the bill, with fines of 30 to 150 euros, goes to committee before a final vote.

Trains and Planes

A Finance Ministry team has been set up to prepare a private operator for the Cascais line, under a dispatch published on Monday. The Sintra and Azambuja line is only "subject to confirmation", and the Sado line has dropped out. For passengers nothing changes yet: CP runs every train, and no tender has been designed.

At Alcochete, ANA's latest plan for the new Luís de Camões airport has one passenger terminal instead of two, and the government has written asking ANA to explain why. ANA's report puts the opening in mid-2037; the government wants it sooner.

If you are flying this weekend, check your booking. easyJet's Portuguese cabin crew are on strike until Tuesday, and their union says 443 flights from Lisbon, Porto and Faro have been cancelled.

The Waiting List

Lisbon's hospitals carry the heaviest surgical backlog in the country. At the ULS de São José, which runs São José and several other central Lisbon hospitals, 11,819 of the 23,481 patients waiting for surgery had passed the legal limit by the end of July. Santa Maria's overdue count rose by about 70 percent in a year, to 5,758, and Loures-Odivelas has the worst share in Portugal, at 63.7 percent. Across Lisbon and the Tagus Valley, 46,002 people are overdue: more than half the national total.

South of the River, and Amadora

The Navy's Arsenal do Alfeite in Almada will be run by a joint venture between idD Portugal Defence and Italy's Fincantieri, the builder of Portugal's three new frigates. The handover takes about a year, and the Defence Ministry promises that "not a single job" will go.

The Lisbon Court of Appeal has voided the decision clearing two PSP officers accused of lying about a knife beside Odair Moniz, shot dead in Cova da Moura in October 2024, so they could still face trial. And free legal advice for immigrants is coming to 17 councils, among them Lisboa, Almada, Amadora, Loures and Oeiras, where the pilot began. The Bar Association is staffing the rotas, but addresses and hours have not been published yet.

One Number

58. That is the percentage of Lisbon-area residents who say they are satisfied with their city, the lowest in Portugal, against 76 in the Porto area. Only 30 percent are happy with how clean the streets are, and the average daily commute is 80 minutes.

A Day Out With the Dog

From tomorrow, World Animal Day, dogs are allowed back into the gardens of the national palaces of Sintra and Queluz and the Convento dos Capuchos, for the first time in more than a century. The dog's ticket is free: one per person, on a non-extending lead, microchipped, with no more than five dogs inside at once. The Sintra palace garden is free to enter; the Queluz gardens cost 6 euros for an adult.

On in Lisbon

Tomorrow at 21:00 the Museu de Lisboa at the Palácio Pimenta hosts a free open-air concert for the 30th birthday of the Associação Sons da Lusofonia and 20 years of Lisboa Mistura, with Mayra Andrade, Lura, Valete and Stereossauro among more than twenty artists.

On Monday, Republic Day, parliament opens the Palácio de São Bento from 14:30 to 19:00, free, with exhibitions, a children's treasure hunt and a concert by Luís Trigacheiro in the Senate chamber at 17:30; last entry is 18:30. The Festa do Cinema Francês runs until 11 October, with tickets at 6 euros and a Brigitte Bardot retrospective at the Cinemateca. And from Wednesday to Sunday, Os Dias de Marvila fills the parish with free theatre, music, film and guided walks, based at the Biblioteca de Marvila and ending with a dance in the Parque Urbano Mar & Vila.

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

Feature image: the Reitoria of the University of Lisbon, one of Sunday's three polling buildings, by Ivendrell (CC BY-SA 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons.