Portugal's motorway network

[odlum]

Anyone been to Portugal? I have not personally.

Just looking at their roads on viamichelin - bloody hell, they have one extensive looking motorway network!

Looks better than Spain's?

Looks impressive for a country that size.

[Euan]

I have, although I was only travelling on the A22 along the south coast away from the really dense motorway network. I did however take the opportunity to find out a bit more about the Portuguese road network and I was amazed at how developed the motorways were, particularly around Porto which is perhaps even more so than around Lisbon. For a time in the 1990s/2000s I think Portugal's motorways were being built more rapidly than anywhere in Europe.

[roadtester]

I have, although I was only travelling on the A22 along the south coast away from the really dense motorway network. I did however take the opportunity to find out a bit more about the Portuguese road network and I was amazed at how developed the motorways were, particularly around Porto which is perhaps even more so than around Lisbon. For a time in the 1990s/2000s I think Portugal's motorways were being built more rapidly than anywhere in Europe.

I've driven quite a lot in Portugal as it's a popular location for car press launches - but mainly away from the motorway network.

I think you are correct in saying they had an increase in infrastructure spending during the period to which you refer - one of the drivers may have been Portugal's hosting of Euro 2004 football tournament which I'm guessing would have been one the country's biggest undertakings in recent years. If I remember correctly, there was a big revamp of Lisbon airport, for example, timed to be achieved by the time of the tournament.

[exiled]

Anyone been to Portugal? I have not personally.

Just looking at their roads on viamichelin - bloody hell, they have one extensive looking motorway network!

Looks better than Spain's?

Looks impressive for a country that size.

In defence of Spain most of where the motorway network would be elsewhere is covered by the Autovia network.

[Bryn666]

Private finance and EU grants funded much of the modern Portugese network.

My immediate line manager at work is Portugese. He likes to wind up my Spanish colleague about his roads being better.

[Euan]

Private finance and EU grants funded much of the modern Portugese network.

My immediate line manager at work is Portugese. He likes to wind up my Spanish colleague about his roads being better.

Madrid has an incredibly extensive motorway network. Some of the other major cities such as Murcia and Barcelona have quite impressive networks as well. In Portugal, unlike in Spain, I think the main population centres are quite closely packed between Porto and Lisbon which has resulted in lots of motorways to both cities' surrounding areas.

[exiled]

Private finance and EU grants funded much of the modern Portugese network.

My immediate line manager at work is Portugese. He likes to wind up my Spanish colleague about his roads being better.

Madrid has an incredibly extensive motorway network. Some of the other major cities such as Murcia and Barcelona have quite impressive networks as well. In Portugal, unlike in Spain, I think the main population centres are quite closely packed between Porto and Lisbon which has resulted in lots of motorways to both cities' surrounding areas.

The Radiales of Madrid are an example of how not to do something. Most duplicate free autovias of the state network. The Radiales are a network of M6 Tolls with much clearer M6 next to them.

[RichardA626]

Private finance and EU grants funded much of the modern Portugese network.

My immediate line manager at work is Portugese. He likes to wind up my Spanish colleague about his roads being better.

Madrid has an incredibly extensive motorway network. Some of the other major cities such as Murcia and Barcelona have quite impressive networks as well. In Portugal, unlike in Spain, I think the main population centres are quite closely packed between Porto and Lisbon which has resulted in lots of motorways to both cities' surrounding areas.

The Radiales of Madrid are an example of how not to do something. Most duplicate free autovias of the state network. The Radiales are a network of M6 Tolls with much clearer M6 next to them.

Spain seems have a few "ghost" toll roads that are hardly used because they duplicate a free route.

[Euan]

The non-toll motorways around Madrid must get really congested if so many drivers who would be better using the toll motorways for where they are heading for end up using the non-toll motorways instead. Heading east from Madrid the AP-2 splits into the AP-2 and the A-2 at Lleida on the way out to Barcelona, so there might be something similar happening with the levels of traffic there as well.

[Mark Hewitt]

Went from Faro to Portimão along the A22 today. I was shocked at the road. Very poor road surface throughout.

Being more used to Spain where the roads are invariably immaculate this was a bit of a shock.

[Chris5156]

Went from Faro to Portimão along the A22 today. I was shocked at the road. Very poor road surface throughout.

Being more used to Spain where the roads are invariably immaculate this was a bit of a shock.

That's a shame. I last used it around 2006, when it was relatively new and still free to use, and it was flawless then. It's now tolled but evidently the toll revenue isn't translating into funding for maintenance work.

[Leaferclove]

We did a holiday to the Porto area a few years back. Hired a Citroen C1 and did a load of driving inland to see some of the scenery and rural life. Unsurprisingly, the gutless C1 struggled on some of the inclines in the hillier areas!

We did some big sections of A3, A4, A11, A28 and A41. All very impressive and not really that busy either - the A41 in particular I remember being virtually empty in the middle of the day. I think what was most surprising was the redundancy in the network - a lot of effectively parallel routes in and around the edges of Porto.

I don't recall any real issues with road surface, although central Porto was a bit worse, but that was to be expected for an inner city area. I guess things may have changed in the years since, it'll soon be getting on 10 years since we went!

[James]

We went to Portugal the other year. At least in Spain where you pay for a toll road, its usually in good condition, but the A22 across the Algarve was terrible

The rest are varying standards I found going up to Porto, but it reminds me of France where you either pay the toll or use a local/poor quality road, when returning to the south we ended up cutting across near Salamanca if I remember to get back on to the Spanish autovias.

I was looking at routes and came up with this.. says a lot really
https://imgur.com/a/zi0fi8k

[trickstat]

We did a holiday to the Porto area a few years back. Hired a Citroen C1 and did a load of driving inland to see some of the scenery and rural life. Unsurprisingly, the gutless C1 struggled on some of the inclines in the hillier areas!

My Mum has a C1 which I have driven from time to time. It is much nipper when it's only carrying a driver.

[Enceladus]

I meant to contribute to this thread before now as I holidayed in Portugal with my partner for the first time last Christmas - we spent a few days just outside Lisbon in Sintra and rented a car to drive down the A2 to Faro in the Algarve where we spent another few days in a beautiful historic hotel in Estoi - and used the A22 to travel around the Algarve to locations such as Lagos, Tavira and Portimao.

My impression of the Portuguese motorway system was largely positive - the motorways we travelled on seemed well-surfaced, well-lined and signed and unlike some of the older Spanish motorways, have better interchange layouts - particularly with respect to having adequate merging lanes and turning geometry. Central barriers were either of the steel armco type or in some places, concrete. Portuguese drivers seem to be better also than the Spanish at adhering to good driving etiquette and seemed to be less aggressive drivers generally.

The A2 motorway connecting Lisbon and the Algarve was pretty good - mostly D2 (with D3 between Lisbon and Setubal) with good hard shoulder provision, good surfacing and there were very few toll booths to encounter. Also, like Spain, in hilly areas there were quite a few large bridges and tunnels encountered. The A2 also has plenty of motorway services along its length although the services are rather basic in terms of facilities - a large service station with toilets, a restaurant which looked like a govt concession to a Portuguese company, and a large parking area.

We also had the wonderful opportunity to drive across the impressive Vasco de Gama bridge across the Tagus estuary which affords superb views of Lisbon city and its hinterland - the toll for this crossing is pretty hefty but as we had our tolls covered by a device that the car rental company provided with our car, we didn't really pay much attention to the specific toll amounts!

Driving off the motorway system is a bit of a different matter - Lisbon has heavy traffic in its hinterland and driving into the city can be tricky with one way systems and traffic jams. Road surfaces on non-motorway roads were very variable - some good, others poor. There is also a provision on S2 roads in Portugal for turning left across oncoming traffic - they have these small islands that make this action much easier and safer but they are not at every junction. In general, the S2 roads were well surfaced, lined and signed.

In Lisbon there are many boulevard style wide roads where it can be very awkward and stressful to make certain turns, and certainly any u-turns if and when we realised we were heading in the wrong direction. Many of the junctions in Lisbon have counter-intuitive movements where you have to take a right turn to then cross over the boulevard to go left or do a u-turn. Motorway and DC GSJ junctions in and around Lisbon, where there are parallel motorways in a sort of a loose grid system around the city proper, are closely spaced together which can be tricky at times.

The A22 that runs along the Algarve did indeed have a rather poor surface in many places as others here mentioned - bumpy and patchy. There were also these toll gate devices without barriers along the route that we drove through. The GSJ between the A2 and A22 near Albufiera was very impressive as a very large directional-T with big flyovers.

I took lots of photos of some of these roads and when I have some more spare time I will try to post some of these up on this thread. In general we found driving in Portugal to be a more pleasant experience than Spain and its motorways to be of a pretty good standard.