“A Metro do Porto was not involved in the evaluation of the alternative solution now presented,” stated an official source from the company, indicating that “the construction project for the Rubi Line (H), connecting Casa da Música and Santo Ovídio, which also includes a new crossing over the Douro River, is fully stabilized.”
The issue concerns a proposal from the consortium LusoLav (comprising Mota-Engil, Teixeira Duarte, Alves Ribeiro, Casais, Conduril, and Gabriel Couto) to move the Santo Ovídio high-speed rail station about one and a half kilometers south to a location in Vilar do Paraíso. This change would mean losing a direct connection to the Yellow Line, but would extend the Rubi Line with an intermediate station in Laborim.
In addition to a set of road access constructions, the proposal includes “the extension of the Rubi Line from Santo Ovídio to the High-Speed Station (western side),” where the consortium suggested dividing the costs between heavy construction work, funded by LusoLav, and Metro do Porto (installation of the line and respective equipment).
However, LusoLav’s own technicians acknowledged on Thursday that building the station at the newly suggested location would actually be more expensive.
“Let me tell you this, you won’t believe it: but this station [to the south] is much more expensive for us, also factoring in the metro line we have to construct, the infrastructure part, which includes a 900-meter viaduct, plus another 800 meters, a tunnel, and the arrival station,” said engineer Rui Guimarães to PSD councilor Rui Rocha Pereira following a presentation at an extraordinary City Council meeting that approved the non-binding proposal (with PSD voting against).
The LusoLav proposal to relocate the Gaia high-speed rail station from Santo Ovídio to Vilar do Paraíso also removes the direct connection to Metro do Porto’s Yellow Line.
If this change is authorized and approved by Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP), it will mean abandoning the planned connection to the Yellow Line at both the D. João II metro station (where a bus terminal was also planned) and Santo Ovídio, where the high-speed line was supposed to converge with Metro do Porto’s Yellow and Rubi Lines.
Metro do Porto states, however, that it is “ready to align with the decisions made by the authorities on this matter, including, if necessary, the exploration of metro channels that may be developed as part of the project in question.”
The new location proposed by LusoLav for the high-speed rail station in Gaia is positioned above a brook, thus within the National Ecological Reserve.
On Wednesday, IP declared it was unaware of LusoLav’s proposed changes to the Gaia high-speed station and the Douro River bridge, noting that it has not yet signed the concession contract with the consortium.
The Porto City Council also reported it “was unaware of the dual bridge solution proposal and has not received information from IP [Infraestruturas de Portugal] to date,” a source stated on Wednesday.
The consortium claims that the proposal to alter the location of the Gaia station and shift from a single road-rail bridge over the Douro to two bridges is “within the approved corridor” from an environmental standpoint, even though the location diverges from IP’s preliminary study.
The mayor of Gaia, Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues, expressed skepticism over the new solution presented by the LusoLav consortium for the high-speed station, citing legal, urban, and mobility concerns, despite voting in favor.
