“The development of studies and various criticisms from the public, especially concerning the unusual geometry of its main supports, has led to the consideration of another possibility for the Douro crossing,” states the Environmental Compliance Report of the Execution Project (RECAPE) of the high-speed line from Porto to Oiã, currently open for public consultation until November 11.
The initially proposed and approved project by Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP) included a road-rail crossing with “a lower deck passing between the two legs of the towers and the corresponding landscape impact (due to the much larger width required for the lower deck compared to the upper deck, 23 m versus 14 m, and the planned altimetric separation for both decks, which did not allow for more elegant geometries for the towers).”
“The large dimension of the pillar layout of this solution could lead to significant erosion effects on the Gaia bank, a sensitive issue identified in the opinion of APDL [Ports Administration of Douro, Leixões, and Viana do Castelo], the report notes.
Additionally, “the constraint of only being able to start constructing the lower deck after the complete construction of the upper deck raised some concerns about meeting the deadlines required for the completion of the works,” as mentioned in the RECAPE.
According to the consortium, “the studies developed for the two-bridge solution led to the conclusion that the construction costs are very similar to those evaluated for the road-rail bridge,” and therefore the group “fully assumes the costs of constructing the two bridges as part of the works,” eliminating “the risk of sequential construction timing of the two decks, as it becomes possible to construct them in parallel.”
“The single bridge solution also highlights the difficulties related to the separation of competencies and responsibilities for operating the railway and road decks, primarily the impact on railway operations that an accident or repair on the road bridge could entail and vice versa,” it further argues.
It also reveals that this solution “has already been submitted for appraisal to the municipalities of Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia, having received favorable agreement, formally in the case of the Vila Nova de Gaia City Council, for its development instead of the proposed solution in the tender.”
The location of the high-speed station in Gaia at Santo Ovídio, with connections to the Yellow and Ruby metro lines, and the solution of a road-rail bridge over the Douro have been planned since September 2022, during the first presentation of the high-speed line project.
IP is conducting a “technical and legal analysis” of the consortium’s proposal for the Gaia high-speed station, confirming receipt of elements outside of what was submitted in the public tender, including the preliminary design of the station “in a location further south than the solution studied by IP in Santo Ovídio.”
The European Investment Bank (EIB) stated to Lusa in September that it financed the high-speed line based on the proposal that meets the public tender specifications, which the consortium’s initially submitted proposal “reflects the depth and specifications approved during the public tender process and outlined in the Environmental Impact Assessment (AIA) of the project,” and that “any material change to the project would require a formal review by the creditors and relevant authorities.”
The Porto-Oiã section of the high-speed line received EIB financing of 875 million euros, with the total cost of the section being 1.661 billion euros.
On April 16, the Government ensured that “any potential change must be fully safeguarded from a legal standpoint, be in total compliance with the requirements of the terms of reference, and ensure the agreement of the municipalities,” noting that the consortium’s initial proposal “was aligned with the preliminary design presented by IP.”
