Mota-Engil consortium to submit new project for high-speed rail link in Gaia

The consortium led by Mota-Engil will submit a new project to the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) for the two sections of the Porto-Lisbon high-speed line that were rejected, according to ECO. The submission is expected to take place by the end of the first quarter.

On 20 December, the APA decided that the project presented by the AVAN Norte consortium for the section of the line that crosses Espinho, Vila Nova de Gaia and Porto was non-compliant, considering that the proposal deviated from the preliminary study that served as the basis for the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

The consortium — which also includes the construction companies Teixeira Duarte, Casais, Alves Ribeiro, Conduril and Gabriel A.S. Couto — presented a project with two new bridges to cross the Douro, instead of a single road-rail bridge. The station in Gaia, instead of being underground in Santo Ovídio, would be above ground in Vale do Paraíso. The project also reduced the depth at which the route was developed and the length of the tunnels.

However, the APA and the Assessment Committee considered the changes to be “manifestly different” from those assessed in the process that led to the issuance of the EIS for the 72-kilometre line that will carry high-speed trains from Campanhã station to Oiã, in the district of Aveiro.

The consortium will now submit a new Environmental Compliance Report for the Implementation Project (RECAPE, in Portuguese), which is closer to the original solutions, between the end of this quarter and the beginning of the next.

The new RECAPE will have to be subject to public consultation for a period of 15 days. This will be followed by seven days for the preparation of the consultation report and a further 50 days for the decision on environmental compliance. In other words, it will take 72 days, almost three and a half months, if there are no interruptions to the deadlines, which will bring the APA’s verdict to June.

The public-private partnership concession contract for the first section, which has a base price of €1,661.4 million, was signed with the consortium in July last year and construction was scheduled to start in January, but with the RECAPE approval, the deadlines will be delayed.

The station of discord

The station in Gaia has been the main source of contention. The consortium pointed out several advantages for the Vale do Paraíso location, such as shorter construction time, lower environmental and energy impact, greater operational flexibility for the railway, with backup tracks, the advantage for passenger safety, and the possibility of avoiding the impact that the construction of the underground station will have on the centre of Gaia.

In its opinion sent to the APA, the Gaia City Council also expressed its support for an above-ground solution, arguing that “the station should be located in a place that does not require large-scale construction and earthworks, in addition to serious traffic constraints and restrictions that would result from the construction of the station in Santo Ovídio”.

The Association of Companies in the São Caetano Industrial Zone (AESC, in Portuguese) has spoken out against the proposed solution for crossing Vila Nova de Gaia and the implementation of the station in Vale do Paraíso, considering that “it would involve a substantially higher number of expropriations (around 135, compared to 40 in the official plan), critically affecting the economic, housing and community fabric of the region”.

The station in Santo Ovídio would also be close to the Yellow Line station, ensuring intermodality. The Porto Metro has not planned or studied an extension to Vale do Paraíso.

A new international public tender for the second section of the Porto-Lisbon line, between Oiã and Soure, is expected to be launched shortly, after the first one was cancelled by the jury. The Council of Ministers’ Resolution authorising IP – Infraestruturas de Portugal to incur the expenditure was published on Monday in Diário da República.