One of the Metrobus stations under construction on Avenida da Boavista, Porto
Announcement from Porto City Council, STCP and Metro do Porto, which puts an “end to a long ordeal”. Vehicles will go completely around the Boavista roundabout.
O metrobus do Porto will start the operation in end of Februaryyou must have a trial period free em March and, to start and end the service, will go around the Boavista roundabout.
“Today we are in a position to announce that, in phase 1 [Casa da Música – Praça do Império] we will have the metrobus operating at the end of next February, through, in the first instance, a trial period”, said today the mayor of Porto, Pedro Duarte, in the D. Maria II room at Paços do Concelho, after signing the metrobus operational memorandum.
The announcement was also made by the president of Metro do Porto, Emídio Gomes, and the signing of the document also included the president of the Sociedade de Transportes Coletivos do Porto (STCP), Cristina Pimentel, also involving the Government’s oversight of Infrastructure and Finance.
For Pedro Duarte, “at the end of a long ordeal”it is possible to affirm that “the metrobus will work, it will be able to be used by the people of Porto”, putting an end to what he classified as “too much time of inertia, too much time of irresponsibility and too much time of disrespect for the people of Porto”.
For his part, it was up to the president of Metro do Porto to present the solution found for the metrobus start and end the operation at Casa da Música station, confirming the abandonment of the wrong-way U-turn in a new improvised roundabout exclusively for the metrobus, and the regular surrounding of the Boavista roundabout.
“The initial project was resumed, which predicted that the vehicle would completely surround the roundabout, but to ensure that the operation takes place within the expected times – penalizing efficiency, but guaranteeing operability and objectives – there will be a redundancy of an additional vehicle”, explained Emídio Gomes.
Like this, “when one of the vehicles reaches the top of the avenue [e chega à estação Casa da Música]he [outro veículo] It’s already there waiting on the other side“, he detailed.
“It is a very simple solution, it penalizes efficiency from the point of view of material performance and even a little economical operation, but it guarantees what is essential, which is the service to the population within the estimated times”, said Emídio Gomes.
The “soap opera”
The metrobus was already announced in the middle of 2021. 12 100% electric buses would be purchased to cover a 3.8-kilometer route, with seven stations, “30 meters long and three-meter-wide side docks”.
It will be operated with buses on completely segregated roads that have priority over other vehicles whenever there are intersections; It is the buses themselves that activate the traffic lights.
At the time, it was said that the vehicles would start circulating.
2023 passed, nothing. It would start at the end of the summer of 2024. And then people believed in that date more because, in fact, the routes and stops were ready. But the structure was ready – .
Still in 2024, STCP and the Porto Municipal Police rejected the use of the metrobus channel for the provisional circulation of line 203 by . Difficulty in oncoming traffic maneuvers, the height of the pier and the width of the road were the problems identified in the tests.
At the beginning of this year, hydrogen vehicles that will carry out the operation would supposedly arrive. And the operation would begin. It didn’t happen either.
Already very close to the local elections, the now president Pedro Duarte, at the time a candidate for the Porto Chamber, delivered a precautionary measure regarding the second phase of the project.
But the first phase – this will be the case – will move forward in two months.
