@ShiningInLuz On the short section of Rua Teixeira which joins Rua Martins to Rua Direita, halfway is a change in the road surface from tarmac to cobbled. Maybe this is the location where one searcher described road works?
It does look from the two manhole covers at the start of this section that this was where this bit of road works started. My memory dredges up an open man hole around the time, but as a media story rather than a statement, and located it at the north end of Rua Helena Nascimento Baptista. That one would not be in a likely Madeleine path.
The actual state of the road works that night is both relevant and problematic.
The files show photos of works in Rua HNB and Direita, but not the states of other parts of these roads.
They do not do 'rolling' repairs here i.e. start at end A and as soon as the drains are laid restore section A to use whilst moving on to section B. They started improvements in Rua do Cemiterio in early Jan 2015 at the east end, worked right along to the west end, had the entire street out of action for over 3 months (tough luck on those with drives onto the street) and restored the entire surface before the Luz triathlon of Apr 25. And I suspect that deadline was met mainly because RdC was part of the triathlon route.
Google Earth shows Rua HNB had not been restored by June 2007.
I have seen a photo, I believe on this forum, of traffic going the 'wrong' way on Direita i.e. against the normal one-way system. Like a fool, I don't seem to have noted where that was or bagged the photo. If traffic was going the wrong way, then it would seem that temporary diversions were in place. That would make sense, as traffic in significant chunks of Luz depends on Direita being at least part open.
Here's where the problematic bit kicks in. I am surround by people who could shed light on this aspect, but attempting to discuss the case here invariably leads to a swift change of topic. Nobody who was here at the time is interested, other than wishing the media would go somewhere else.
