Lisbon, Aug. 6, 2026 (Lusa) - The 25 Abril Bridge is celebrating six decades of linking Lisbon and Almada on Thursday. It is no longer the only bridge over the River Tagus in the Portuguese capital – the Vasco da Gama Bridge having been built since – but it remains the busiest.
«A historic day: the bridge has been opened,» reported the "Diário Popular" in August 1966, noting that «the opening of the great bridge over the Tagus attracted thousands upon thousands of people to all the vantage points in Lisbon and Almada, eager to witness this historic moment».
Built at the height of the Estado Novo [dictatorship] regime, the first bridge over the Tagus in Lisbon was opened under the name Ponte Salazar, although, according to the book "A Ponte Inevitável" by Luís F. Rodrigues, the dictator did not wish to lend his name to the infrastructure, having yielded to pressure «from the Minister of Public Works, Engineer Arantes e Oliveira, supported by the country's president, Américo Thomaz».
Construction began in November 1962, and the project was completed in less than four years, six months ahead of schedule, at a final cost of 4.49 million contos, equivalent to around €22.39 million.
The resemblance to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is no coincidence, as both were built by the American Bridge Company, but, although both are suspension bridges supported by steel cables on orange-coloured metal towers, the Portuguese structure already has two deck levels and was designed to accommodate rail traffic – something that would only come to pass some three decades after its opening.
Regarded as «the largest public works project» undertaken to date in Portugal, the construction involved around 3,000 workers daily, 14 construction companies – 11 of which were Portuguese – and tens of thousands of tonnes of steel, making this infrastructure an international benchmark in engineering.
The bridge stands out for having a main span of over one kilometre, a distance between abutments exceeding two kilometres, and main towers rising 196 metres above water level, with the southern pier reaching a depth of around 80 metres below the river's surface.
Despite the benefits it has brought to transport links between the two banks of the Tagus, its construction was not without criticism due to the social impact on thousands of residents of the Alcântara Valley who were evicted to make way for the access roads and piers.
At the time, the architect Nuno Teotónio Pereira criticised the Salazar regime for the inhumane conditions under which it carried out the clearance of the shanty towns, common in Lisbon at that time, as well as the rehousing, which he denounced as having been hastily executed and poorly planned, leading to dramatic situations.
In an underground leaflet on the relocation of residents from the Alcântara Valley to Musgueira, the architect pointed out that, as the opening date drew nearer, the evictions took on the avowed aim of ‘clearing' the area surrounding the bridge for aesthetic reasons.
Throughout the bridge's 60-year history, road traffic has increased year on year, with 2005 standing as the record year, seeing more than 57 million vehicles cross the bridge – a daily average of 156,000 vehicles – a figure explained by the strong demographic and property development growth on the Setúbal Peninsula, including in Almada, Seixal and Barreiro.
The years of the Covid-19 pandemic, namely 2020 and 2021, saw the lowest levels of road traffic on the bridge, with daily averages of 115,000 and 124,000 respectively, according to data from Statistics Portugal (INE) for the period 1998–2024.
In March 1998, the capital's second bridge over the Tagus, the Vasco da Gama Bridge, was opened, linking the municipality of Alcochete to Lisbon and Sacavém; however, the 25 de Abril Bridge remains the busiest, with more than double the traffic.
Currently, according to Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP), the bridge is used daily by around 150,000 vehicles and 174 trains, serving, across its road and rail services, more than 100 million users a year.
Since its opening in 1966, tolls have been charged to drivers crossing the bridge, initially 10 escudos for a Class 1 vehicle, with successive increases up to the current €2.25; between 1996 and 2010, no tolls were charged during the month of August.
This measure follows on from the famous ‘horn-blowing protest' in 1994 against a 50% increase in tolls, as well as the concession agreement with Lusoponte, which has operated the road infrastructure since January 1996.
Earlier this year, there was another ‘honking protest' against a 2.29% increase in tolls, organised by the bridge users' association, which is calling for an end to toll payments.
SSM/AYLS // AYLS
Lusa
