Vila Nova de Gaia, Porto, Portugal, April 9, 2025 (Lusa) - The LusoLav consortium, responsible for building the high-speed railway line between Porto and Oiã in northern Portugal, wants to change the location of the Gaia station by two kilometres and build two bridges over the River Douro instead of one road-rail bridge.
According to documents to which Lusa had access on Wednesday, and which will be put to the vote at an extraordinary meeting of the Gaia city council to be held on Thursday at 4pm, as well as at a city council meeting on the same day at 9pm, what is at stake is a change to what was initially presented.
With regard to the station, "a change is proposed to the previously planned location - Santo Ovídio - which was included in the studies drawn up by IP (Portugal's infrastructure managing company) and which served as the basis for the tender, moving the station around 2km to the south".
"The new location proposed for Vila Nova de Gaia station is between Rua da Junqueira de Cima (to the north and west), Rua e Travessa do Guardal de Cima (to the south) and Travessa de Belo Horizonte (to the east)," in the São Caetano area of Vilar do Paraíso.
As well as a series of road accesses to be built, the proposal includes "the extension of the Rubi metro line, from Santo Ovídio to the High Speed Train Station (west side)", with costs shared between the consortium (heavy work) and the Porto Metro (installation of the line and the respective equipment).
"With regard to the extension of the Ruby Line from Santo Ovídio Station, it should be noted that, given the high density and overlapping of infrastructures in this location, this work appears very complex, forcing the road access to be diverted to the west, over a landscaped slope, with a negative impact to be expected, given the proximity to existing residential buildings," it points out.
The municipal services also say that although the station could be removed from Santo Ovídio, between the current Santo Ovídio and D. João II metro stations, "the municipality will have to continue with the detailed plan that is currently being drawn up for the site".
As for the crossing of the River Douro, "the solution now being presented once again separates rail and road on two separate bridges", can be read in municipal documents consulted by Lusa.
They also point out that "the consortium bases this option on the need to reduce the risk of financing, reduce the risk of failure to meet deadlines and on the clear separation of future maintenance responsibilities for each of the bridges".
The consortium's proposal also implies less construction in tunnels, as "in the project included in the Preliminary Study, most of the length of the line in the municipality of Vila Nova de Gaia is planned in a tunnel, made in underground excavation, with less impact on the surface", with 9.2 kilometres in a tunnel out of the total 12 kilometres in the municipality.
However, in the alteration proposed by the consortium, to which Lusa has had access, 3,494 metres of underground tunnels are planned, 1,666 metres in ‘cut & cover’ tunnels, 940 metres in embankments, 5,264 metres in excavation and 1,524 metres behind walls.
"Comparing the two solutions, there is a three-fold increase in the surface impact, going from the previous 2,540 metres of planned line in the areas of embankments, excavation and walls to 7,728 metres in length," can be read in the documents to which Lusa had access.
The solution now presented "in confrontation with housing and industrial areas that have already been built, with the existing structures and the routes of the current road structure, requires a diversified set of road re-establishment solutions in order to minimise the impact of the territorial barrier created, which in this solution is more extensive", the documents state.
"The impact is not limited to the linear extension of the infrastructure, but also to the area adjoining it," implying "expropriations and demolitions in the intervention zones, either for the effective implementation of the high-speed line or due to the dimensional need for work areas for its construction."
JE/AYLS // AYLS
Lusa
