Fix This City – How to Speed Up Repairs in Lisbon

I have lived in Lisbon for five years now. Long enough to have roots, routines, and friendships here. Long enough to understand the rhythms of the city, but also long enough to notice its glaring flaws. 

And here is the truth: Lisbon does not fix things. Or, more accurately, Lisbon does not fix things quickly enough.

I don’t say this to rage bait, but because I have seen it, again and again, to the point of absurdity. A broken elevator at a metro station sits unusable for months. A stairwell escalator has its “out of order” sign for over a year before anyone even thinks of touching it. A tagged wall is left smeared with paint for at least the five years since I have known it.

Please don’t come at me because I am not Portuguese. In fact, it is my outside yet also inside perspective that may provide the kind of reflection Lisbon, and its government, needs to hear.

When you live here, you stop asking “why” and start asking “when.” Except the “when” never seems to arrive.

The Escalator Problem

Let’s start with the single most obvious and pressing issue: escalators and elevators.

Lisbon may be one of the worst cities in Europe for people with physical disabilities, the elderly, or anyone pushing a stroller. Public transportation is supposed to be a lifeline for everyone. But here? I would challenge anyone in a wheelchair to ride the metro consistently without running into a dead end.

Escalators break and remain broken for months. Elevators too. It is not simply inconvenient, it is exclusionary. For a wheelchair user, it means being effectively locked out of the metro system. For the elderly, it makes a simple trip exhausting and dangerous. For parents with strollers, it creates humiliating situations where you have to rely on strangers to help carry your baby carriage up thirty stairs to the ticket gates.

This is not just about accessibility, it is about dignity.

And what makes it worse is the lack of transparency. When an escalator breaks, there is no way to know if it will be fixed tomorrow, next month, or next year. You walk into a metro station and it’s a lottery: will the machines work today? Or will you be stranded, forced to climb or detour around a problem that should not exist?

We live in an age of real-time data. We can see traffic patterns minute by minute. We can be told where the speed traps are and where the police are lying in wait to write us a ticket. Yet, we cannot know whether the elevator at Oriente station is functioning (hint: it’s been broken for at least two years). Why?

The Graffiti Problem

Escalators and elevators may be the most obvious, but they are not the only symptom of Lisbon’s paralysis. Let’s talk about graffiti.

I am not talking about murals or street art. Lisbon has some of the best in the world. That is art. That is identity.

But tagging sloppy scribbles of names and profanities sprayed onto doors, windows, and monuments is another matter altogether. Tagging is vandalism. It is the visual equivalent of a dog marking territory. And when left unchecked, it sends a very clear message: “This place is not cared for.”

Tourists notice it. Residents notice it. The longer it sits, the more it multiplies. 

And once again, Lisbon lets it linger.

The Airport Problem

Another glaring example of Lisbon’s slow-motion approach to infrastructure is its airport.

Lisbon Airport, or Humberto Delgado Airport, opened on 15 October 1942 and has served as the city’s primary air transport hub ever since. In the last decade, the airport’s traffic has ballooned from around 20 million annual passengers in 2015 to over 35 million in 2024, marking a staggering growth spurt.

However, the airport infrastructure has not kept pace. Planning for a new airport began decades ago. Studies started in the mid-1960s with site proposals still being bandied about in the 2000s, almost half a century of indecision. It wasn’t until 10 January 2008 that Alcochete was selected as the preferred location, only for plans to be shelved again in 2013.

Finally, in 2024, a new location was chosen: the government has asked ANA (Vinci Airports) to formalize a proposal for a new airport in Alcochete, aiming to open by 2034, at a projected cost of up to nine billion euros, with no direct state funding required. Meanwhile, the existing airport is undergoing expansion: construction on Terminal 1 started in December 2024, with new jet bridges and apron space aiming to boost capacity toward 50 million passengers annually by 2027.

On the metro front, expansion announcements repeatedly slide off schedule. The Red Line extension from São Sebastião to Alcântara still hasn’t started, despite the first timelines announcing 2026 as the year of completion. Metro expansion projects such as the Violet Line to Loures and Odivelas, originally slated for the end of 2025, are still delayed.

This really isn’t something to laugh about. When every timeline drifts 5 to 10 years past expectations, the economic, social, and emotional cost mounts. Inflation eats budgets. Tourist lines grow. Daily life becomes a waiting game.

This has to stop. Inflation is real, and the cost of delay in materials, labor, and frustration far outweighs the headaches of taking action in the present. Lisbon has every right and ability to become a world-class city. Maybe it’s the collective work of the people through the use of technology that will make the difference. Call me crazy, but I don’t think this is too farfetched or too much to ask. Enter a potential solution. 

The Solution: An Eyes & Ears App

I am no app developer, but if there is someone reading who is, I would your help. In my opinion, here is what Lisbon needs: a collective tool. Let’s call it “Eyes & Ears.”

Imagine opening an app and seeing, in real time, the status of every elevator and escalator in the city, public or private. Whether it is a metro station, shopping center, or apartment buildings, if something breaks, a citizen can log it immediately.

And not just log it. The information could be shared publicly, mapped like traffic reports on Google Maps. Suddenly, people know before they leave home whether they can actually rely on the infrastructure they need.

Citizens could also use Eyes & Ears to report new tags instantly with geolocation and photos. Companies specializing in graffiti removal could bid on removing it, just like escalator repairs. If the internet can collectively track down criminals in hours, or at most days, why can’t a city collectively erase a tag in the same amount of time?

If the government flexed its muscles, both with stricter punishments for taggers and faster clean-up, the culture would shift. Lisbon would look less like a neglected space and more like a city that respects itself.

But that’s just the first step.

The real innovation would be creating accountability and speed through open contracting. Why should the public wait months for a repair when private contractors could compete to fix it faster with taxpayer money? Here’s how it could work:

1. A broken machine gets reported on the app.
2. The government or private owner sets aside money for its repair.
3. Contractors bid to fix it, with the contract automatically awarded.
4. Payment is locked until the repair is confirmed, not by the owner but by multiple app users verifying it works.
5. The longer it takes, the less money the contractor earns.

This model incentivizes quick action. It creates transparency. And it breaks the cycle of waiting around for some faceless bureaucracy to remember us.

Lisbon could become a pioneer in citizen-monitored infrastructure.

Beyond Lisbon: A Model for Cities Everywhere

Now, I know Lisbon is not unique. Many cities suffer from the same disease: broken things stay broken because fixing them lacks urgency. Governments and municipalities work on bureaucratic timelines, not human ones.

But Lisbon has an opportunity here. This city is on the world stage: tourists, expats, digital nomads, investors – everyone is watching. What if Lisbon became the first city to truly crowdsource infrastructure accountability?

Instead of feeling powerless or left in the dark regarding how long it will take or something to be fixed, we can feel empowered. Instead of a culture of “wait and see,” we would have a culture of “report and repair.”

The Cultural Shift Lisbon Needs

Ultimately, this is about culture. Right now, Lisbon has a culture of complacency. Things stay broken because people have gotten used to them staying broken – and when people get used to brokenness, they stop believing change is possible.

That is toxic.

To become the city it aspires to be, welcoming, inclusive, proud, Lisbon needs to shift to a culture of efficiency. And not efficiency in the corporate sense, but in the human sense. A culture where residents believe their effort makes a difference, where reporting a problem does not feel like shouting into the void.

An app like Eyes & Ears is just a tool, but tools can transform habits. The internet already shows us the power of collective attention: online communities solve crimes, identify scammers, and trace anonymous posters. If we can do that, we can certainly keep track of broken escalators.

The key is this: let the people help. Stop bottlenecking everything at the level of slow-moving offices. Put the power in citizens’ hands. Lisbon doesn’t need more excuses, it needs more solutions.

A Dream Worth Building

Maybe this sounds idealistic. Maybe it sounds like a dream. Maybe you want to call me a capitalist. But every real change began with someone daring to say, “This doesn’t have to stay this way.”

Lisbon deserves better than escalators that take months to fix. Lisbon deserves better than walls defaced and ignored. Lisbon deserves better than an airport that is out of date and overwhelmed. Lisbon deserves better than telling wheelchair users and parents with young children, “Sorry, you’re on your own.”

I live here. I care. I love this city. But love also means honesty.

If Lisbon wants to be not just a postcard-perfect destination but a livable, equitable city, it needs to fix itself, fast. And it needs to let us, the people who walk its streets every day, be part of that fixing.

So let’s do it. Let’s put Eyes & Ears everywhere. Let’s track what breaks, let’s fix it faster, and let’s build a Lisbon that takes pride in being cared for.

Dreams, as I like to say, contain within them the seeds of reality. It’s time to fix Lisbon and make it a model for the world.