The president of a residents’ association in Lisbon has claimed that overtourism is partially to blame for the crash that killed 16 people and injured 21 others. The 140-year-old Elevador da Glória streetcar derailed and crashed into a nearby building after a loose cable snapped. Fabiana Pavel, president of the Bairro Alto Residents’ Association, told the BBC that the deadly crash could be due to “excessive tourism.” “The use of it in recent years is certainly inappropriate. It was used too much and the population lost the ability to use it as public transport, because it became a tourist attraction,” Pavel said. Tourists and locals were among the victims. The funicular was a top attraction in Lisbon and was designated a national monument in the 1990s, drawing daily flocks of tourists and regular commuters—about three million a year, per The Daily Telegraph. Regular maintenance of the tram has been outsourced to an external contractor since 2011, according to Time. The contract ended in August, days before the accident, according to The Telegraph. The Glória streetcar also derailed seven years ago due to “serious failures in the maintenance of the wheels,” according to Portuguese periodical Público, though no one was hurt at the time. The city’s other funiculars are now undergoing technical inspections. Carris, the municipal transport company that owns the funiculars, said in a press statement that “all maintenance protocols have been carried out.”
Read it at The Daily Telegraph
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