"The objective is to open it in 2024. We are in talks with the Chamber of Matosinhos and Porto, we are in fact looking at this matter", said João Galamba, who responded to the deputies in the Assembly of the Republic, in the discussion on the specialty of the State Budget for next year.
The government official was responding to a question from deputy José Carlos Barbosa (PS), who demanded that "it is really necessary to open" the Leixões Line, Porto's railway ring road, to passengers in 2024.
However, the minister stressed that "it is not just about opening" the line, but "it is necessary to rethink the stations today, because they are out of step with the density and places where passengers board".
"We need to rethink this, so that what happened in 2010 happens in passenger service", when the line opened outside of passenger needs and without "great demand".
Even so, João Galamba pointed out that "it is important to reopen" Porto's circular railway line to passengers, and the Government's objective is to reopen it "as quickly [as possible]".
"With frequencies not of one [train] per hour, but more", he assured.
For the minister, "complementarity, intermodality between transport systems is decisive and must be thought of as a whole".
In the opening speech, the Minister of Infrastructure had already said that “there are all the conditions to move forward with the works to modernize the connection to the Port of Setúbal and the Leixões line”.
In the case of Leixões, the project only covers the transport of goods, but the minister assured that the Government is actively working with IP, CP – Comboios de Portugal and the municipalities “to create conditions for the introduction, in the year 2024 if passenger services as possible.”
In August, CP presented a study expressing its readiness to reactivate passenger service on the Leixões Line to Leça do Balio (Matosinhos), departing from Campanhã, if stops are built (by Infraestruturas de Portugal) at Hospital São João and Arroteia .
By station, the estimated demand is 502 thousand passengers per year for Campanhã, 24.5 thousand for Contumil, 123 thousand for São Gemil, 444 thousand for Hospital São João, 132 thousand for São Mamede de Infesta, 115 thousand for Arroteia and 49 thousand in Leça do Balio.
In a second phase, CP's objective is to extend the service to Guifões and the Leixões terminal station, with an interface with the metro in Custió-Araújo, but in the presentation there were no references to the connection to the Vermelha and Violeta metro lines, bound for Póvoa de Varzim and Aeroporto, respectively, nor Azul, in Senhor de Matosinhos.
The president of Lionesa, Pedro Pinto, defended that the Leixões Line should be reopened to passengers to decongest the Via de Cintura Interna (VCI), functioning as "an internal belt route not intended for cars, but for the railway", since , according to the company, "this would lead to a reduction in the volume of car traffic by 20%".