Lisbon approves free public transport for young and elderly people
The measure covers young people up to the age of 18 (also includes university students up to the age of 23 and 24 for medicine and architecture students) and over 65.
The Lisbon City Council (CML) has unanimously approved a measure that will make public transport in Lisbon to be free for young people and those over 65 years old with permanent residence in the municipality.
“It is a historic day for our city, as we have achieved something unprecedented for the people of Lisbon,” the mayor Carlos Moedas points out, in statements broadcast by RTP3. The mayor highlights the environmental nature of the measure, also stating that “there are very few cities in Europe that have had the courage to do this.”
The measure covers young people up to the age of 18 (also includes university students up to the age of 23 and 24 for medicine and architecture students) and over 65.
The mayor adds that “the trend will have to be free transport for all, but this is not possible in a first step.” Nevertheless, he admits that the “measure may be extended in the future, to other people and other cases, to move in that direction.”
Besides being a step in the fight against climate change, as Moedas highlights, it also gains another importance with “the inflation we are living”, after the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
