September 28, 2022. At Campanha station, Prime Minister Antonio Costa introduces the High Speed line project between Lisbon and Porto, which the Portuguese Government wants to expand to include Vigo by 2030. As a horizon and measure of pressure for the Spanish.
That serious move he made with the Minister of Infrastructure, Pedro Nuno Santos, This became the starting signal for numerous attempts to initiate the modernization of the railway in the country after a quarter of a century of failures. “Desta vai” repeated on both sides of the bordera, adding the 2030 World Cup as an incentive join forces.
16 months later and When the first contracts were made, the king naked. The ambitious program to launch the 290-kilometer line between the two cities in 2028 has become invalid and the situation is getting worse for Galicia. “Almost unbuildable in 2030”. As for the costs, with only one section put out to tender, costs have already increased by 40 percent to 8 billion 000 million euros.
Despite the political victory representing the majority support of the Assembleia da República for the tender for the first 71 kilometers between Porto and Oia, south of Aveiro, “the most important work of the next decade” begins in the neighboring country. To contribute to various discussions. The centre-right PSD has not scaled back its attacks on planning and is now threatening to “re-evaluate” a project that has evoked both passion and rejection in equal measure. The initial contract increased from 1 billion 600 million euros to 2 billion 140 million euros, including 25 years of management and maintenance.
“I don’t have an exact figure, but the global investment between Lisbon and Valença should be around 7 billion or 8 billion euros, if we include the second phase of the Porto-Valença connection,” said the Secretary of State for Infrastructure. Portugal, Frederico Francisco, in an interview with the Lusa agency this week.
The required budget for each of the first four phases (Oporto-Aveiro, Aveiro-Coímbra, Coímbra-Carregado and Braga-Valença) is estimated at around 2,000 million euros, envisaging more than 40% extra costs compared to 5,700 million euros. was initially announced. To this figure we will also have to add the connection to Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport, which is planned for a later phase and whose integration between Porto and Braga was budgeted at 800 million euros two years ago.
If we analyze the calendar presented less than a year and a half ago, the deadlines for the Environmental Impact Assessment and tender phase have been moved forward in the calendar by approximately two years, with the most affected route being the Galicia route. Portuguese Vice President for Infrastructure Carlos Fernandes announced that the information studies planned for the beginning of 2023 will start in a few weeks.
The tender was postponed to “2025 or 2026” and the start of the works was postponed to “between 2027-2028”. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Transport is closely monitoring the Portuguese project, as it is tied to the construction of the new international bridge over the Miño River, which will connect to conventional lines at Tui and Valença. And after building more than 4,000 kilometers of High Speed network in the last three decades, completing its major axes is once again up to coordination with the Portuguese.
Line targets
“A competition like the World Cup is, first and foremost, a logistical operation.” In an interview with FARO, José Gomes Mendes, former Portuguese Secretary of State for Transport and President of the Primeira Liga General Assembly, placed the train at the “center” of Iberia’s candidacy for the highest international national team competition. This magical date at the beginning of the new decade has been claimed as a force for a World Cup that Vigo and Porto could host, with a movement of thousands of fans demanding fast and sustainable vehicles. The new line will reduce the journey in the European Zone to just over an hour and another 80 minutes to Lisbon.
“The High-Speed project between Portugal and Vigo is a train that no longer allows pauses,” said Jose Carlos Barbosa, railway intern and deputy for defense with Faro de Vigo of the Prensa Ibérica group, in an interview. This initiative is in the Parliament. In any case, the future ruler of the neighboring country and the arrival of European funds will mark the progress of the infrastructure that the European Commission has requested before 2040, but will come decades later.
Tastings from Vigo’s southern exit arrive at Bembrive
The Spanish Government continues to outperform its Portuguese counterparts in the High Speed race to the border, almost two years after Pedro Nuno Santos called for him to “remind himself of his shoes”. Besides having a much shorter length (only 23 kilometers), its most complex section is currently under construction. The Vigo South Railway Exit, which is the cornerstone of completing the Atlantic Axis and extending it to the Portuguese border, continues with archaeological research as part of the information work awarded for 884,000 euros in May 2023.
Following the appearance of the machines in Praza da Estación, on this occasion the tastings were moved to the Bembrive neighborhood to determine the route of the 15-kilometer tunnel to Porriño, which will turn Urzáiz into a transit station. The results of the re-prepared study by Prointec, which had already identified two alternatives in the study presented eleven months ago, are not expected to be announced until this summer. These will then be made publicly available for six months before the Environmental Impact Statement.