“No, the financial aspect, no. I think that, perhaps, no. That was never put to us, the financial aspect,” stated António Campos e Matos, the designer for the AVAN Norte consortium (Mota-Engil, Teixeira Duarte, Alves Ribeiro, Casais, Conduril, and Gabriel Couto).
The consortium signed a concession contract on July 29, which includes the Gaia station in Santo Ovídio, intended since 2022 and connected to two metro lines. However, in October, a proposal was presented for a station in Vilar do Paraíso and two separate bridges instead of a road-rail bridge over the Douro.
The route has also been altered, with less tunnel component (6.3 kilometers) than the Preliminary Study anticipated (11.4 kilometers), impacting the surface with 136 demolitions planned in Vila Nova de Gaia and Porto, including 109 homes and 27 businesses, as tallied by Lusa.
When queried by journalists, he reiterated that financial concerns “were not” a decisive factor, acknowledging the existence of financial aspects, as well as safety and environmental concerns, among others.
Regarding the alternative proposal for the Gaia station location and reduced tunnel section, the official emphasized that “the overarching concern is safety.”
“Safety in these cases is about what happens if there’s a fire in a tunnel or a station located 60 meters below, or a derailment, which unfortunately happens. How do you evacuate 3,000 people? In a metro, you get 200 people out. They are 20 meters from the surface. We were 60 meters below with that station, needing to evacuate 3,000. That’s the number one safety issue,” he explained.
On reducing the tunnel length, the engineer considered dividing an eight-kilometer tunnel “into several sections – the longest being three and a half – is exceptional in terms of safety,” since in case of an accident, “one can exit anywhere” without “running kilometers and kilometers.”
Regarding the legal matter of proposing a different solution from the contracted plan and the possibility that other competitors may not have participated due to the tender requirements, including the road-rail bridge and the underground station in Santo Ovídio, António Campos e Matos stated that other companies could have entered the competition.
“A competitor might have bid; the station didn’t have to be down there. It just can’t leave the 400-meter-wide corridor designated for the route,” he said. Asked if this was the consortium’s interpretation, he confirmed, asserting that the stance is “legally supported by the consortium’s lawyers.”
For him, “the fact that the station is here or there” involves “some legal aspects,” but it never “seemed that it was written to be impossible.”
“Obviously, the State cannot, does not have the personnel, does not have the time – mainly not the time – to study a detailed project. That was stated by engineer Carlos Fernandes [vice-president of IP]. Therefore, if we want high-speed rail, this launch model must be where the builder designs the projects, finances it, and so on,” he argued.
According to António Campos e Matos, there is only “one mandatory corridor” and “in any case, everything must be approved by the Portuguese Environment Agency.”
Regarding the demolition of homes, he expressed hope that affected individuals “get a new house,” but noted that “it’s worse in a factory” as they lose production.
“If it were above my house, I would be very worried. But, in fact, there’s no way to do it other than to pass with an eight-kilometer, in this case, 14-kilometer, tunnel underneath,” he said.
He assured that “all this was considered for months and months,” weighing the “least bad” option.
