Lisbon driving – the Baixa downtown Lisbon area

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Driving around Lisbon heading for the city centre will eventually bring you to downtown Lisbon.

This area is referred to by the locals as the ‘Baixa’ area of old Lisboa, which can be directly translated to ‘the lower area’.

Driving in the central downtown Lisbon-Baixa area is advisable only if you have your own parking space or if you are prepared to risk queuing up for parking underground, not to mention pay, for Portuguese standards, quite a hefty hourly rate.

Baixa in Lisbon – guide to getting around in downtown Lisbon

Within the Baixa area, the streets and avenues are all straight and organised in an orderly fashion, which you hardly will find in any other area of Lisbon albeit some of the very recent developments on the outskirts.

In fact it is a perfect grid system in parts, just like Barcelona or New York.

If it wasn’t for the missing roundabouts, the number of tourists and the exquisite Lisbon Pombaline, Manueline, Art Nouveau and Art Deco architecture, you could almost imagine yourself driving in sort of a Portuguese version of Harlow.

The streets are symmetrical, and this part of Lisbon benefits from very large open spaces – not unlike Paris.

Paris a model for rebuilding New Lisbon

The French capital was, of course, the model metropolis for the construction of new Lisbon.

This grand undertaking was planned and carried out by the famous and rather ruthless Marquês de Pombal.

The Marquês was put in charge by a weak king of rebuilding the stricken capital after the 1755 quake. His legacy include the typical Pombaline style of Lisbon architecture.

A lot of buildings in Lisbon can in fact be traced back to a few years after the destruction of Lisbon – especially the streets in the Baixa part of town – which were totally and utterly destroyed by the Great Lisbon Earthquake and the following tsunami in the morning of Saturday, November 1, 1755.

Less cars in Lisbon-Baixa

In the last 5 years, Lisbon has begun transforming into a more modern capital.

The buildings are still the same and will stay like that as it is forbidden to change the old facades expect by renovating to their original looks.

The intensity of the traffic is changing.

Cars are slowly being squeezed out of the most central parts of Lisbon. Instead the bikes, the small electric city cars and – surprise – the pedestrians are taking over more and more streets of the Portuguese capital.

Restrictions of use of old cars in Baixa-Lisboa

From summer 2011, cars before July 1992 year of production cannot enter the Baixa and Avenida areas except if drivers prepay €1 per day or drive an older car registered as a historic vehicle.

Residents in downtown Lisbon are still permitted to drive their old cars, and after 20.00 hours and before 08.00 hours all old cars are permitted.

This change of regulations for driving in Lisbon has evicted pre-1992 cars without catalyc converter as much as possible and it seems to work as planned in favour of the air quality in downtown Lisbon.