Património viário

The most obvious and often the most enjoyable space to walk in the city, and one that usually ticks all four of these boxes, is green space. Is there any better urban space to enjoy than London’s Hyde Park, Dublin’s Phoenix Park, New York’s Central Park, Paris’s Jardin du Luxemburg, Cubbon Park in Bangalore, or the Villa Borghese Gardens in Rome, to name just a few? [E, não esquecendo, o Parque Florestal de Monsanto, que é uma ilha de “verdura” rodeada pela urbanidade da Grande Lisboa.] However, with urbanization set on a one-way trajectory, a common and reasonable fear is that urban development has and will encroach upon historic areas of urban green space, meaning that trees and hedging that reduce the urban heat island effect are being lost. Western Europe has had an urban culture of great parks which has developed over several centuries, and which has sustained itself through famine, disease, and warfare. Are these green spaces under threat from a tide of concrete and tar? [O’MARA, 2019: 104] [Sem dúvida. E, no caso de Monsanto, as ameaças não surgem apenas do exterior mas, também, de quem gestiona a área e que, por ignorância ou insensibilidade, tem vindo a desnaturalizar paulatinamente o espaço… Basta ver o que tem acontecido aos caminhos de pé-posto (single-tracks), substituídos por caminhos alargados, com pisos artificializados, por vezes com escadarias e corrimões, entre outros “primores”. É que os trilhos também são património viário, e merecem ser valorizados e conservados.]

REFERÊNCIA BIBLIOGRÁFICA

O’MARA, Shane. 2019. In Praise of Walking – The new science of how we walk and why it’s good for us. London: Vintage, pp.218