The city of Vila Nova de Gaia, where more and more families and investors are looking to buy a house, gains a new asset: in 2026 it will have a TGV station. The high-speed train, which will link Campanhã, in Porto, to Soure, in Coimbra, will have a station in Santo Ovídio. This is a strong argument for those looking for apartments and villas on that bank of the River Douro. The line, which will run underground until Serzedo, will cost 900,000 euros, fully funded by the Recovery and Resilience Plan, a national application programme that will implement reforms and investments aimed at restoring sustained economic growth, after the pandemic, reinforcing the goal of convergence with Europe over the next decade. The project is closed and the construction work is about to start.
According to the explanations given to the media by the Mayor of Gaia, Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues, this is a new route, different from the one that currently passes through Devesas. The crossing is not parallel to the sea, it is a totally new line that diverts the TGV from the seafront where the train circulates at the moment, in Espinho and Gaia, to the interior of the municipality. It was designed to serve the future line up to Casa da Música. It is called the Rubi Line.
"Santo Ovídio will become a great central distributor of public transport", assured the mayor. Remember that the initial project foresaw that Gaienses, as well as all the people who choose to live in that city, would be forced to go to Campanhã, which will be "the great railway terminal", to catch the TGV or, alternatively, to go to Aveiro. "No one would forgive us if, in Santo Ovídio, the most populous municipality in the Metropolitan Area of Porto, we did not have the great Montparnasse of the North region and of Vila Nova de Gaia," said the mayor, alluding to the Paris train station. "This new infrastructure is absolutely decisive", he emphasized.
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The crossing will be made over a bridge twin to the São João Bridge. In this stretch, the train will not gain a high speed. "It will travel at normal speed, because it is crossing the bridge. It only gains speed from Gaia", said the mayor, adding that this is a "great achievement" for the municipality.
This new bridge, which will link Campo Alegre, in Porto, to Candal, in Gaia - it is the seventh crossing over the Douro - will start to be built in the first half of 2023 and should be completed in 2025. And it will be exclusively reserved for the Metro, pedestrians and bicycles. In other words, it will be fully governed by all sustainability criteria. "The new bridge and the new line are the strongest contribution to the decarbonization of mobility in this region, since this will be the alternative axis to the car circulation in Arrábida Bridge and part of the VCI", also praised, these days, Tiago Braga, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Metro do Porto. "It is a decisive step towards a clean, sustainable and people-friendly future." In a statement, Metro do Porto also assumed that the objective of the construction of the bridge "is to achieve the best execution project, integrating it fully in the life and functioning of the city".
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The winning project (there were 28 national and international proposals) was designed by the consortium formed by the companies Prof. Edgar Cardoso - Engenharia e Laboratório de Estruturas, Lda, Arenas & Associados, Ingenería De Diseño SLP and No Arquitectos, Lda. The design consists of a gantry bridge with arch effect, all built in concrete. As regards its longitudinal profile, it is already known that it will be taller than the Arrábida Bridge, so as not to become a visual obstacle. The construction will have an execution period of 970 days and a budget estimate of 50.5 million euros.
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