The second tunnel of the Lisbon General Drainage Plan (PGDL), between Chelas and Beato, should be completed in 2029, said today the president of Lisbon City Council, Carlos Moedas.
To fully implement the plan, an implementation period between 2016 and 2030 was set – when presented in 2015. The initial schedule released by the PT leadership estimated the end of the project’s two large tunnels, the largest interventions, in 2019. After several delays, the next administration, from the PSDB, passed the limit to February 2025, a deadline that had also already been exceeded.
The first tunnel, which connects Monsanto (Campolide) to Santa Apolónia, began to be excavated in December 2023, a phase that was completed on July 22, 2025, and is still under construction. Previously, already facing delays, it was expected that the second tunnel, between Beato and Chelas, would be completed at the end of this year.
Total investment of 250 million euros
With a total investment of around 250 million euros, the PGDL – first announced in 2006, but which only progressed in 2015, with Fernando Medina as president of the municipality – is considered an important project to combat floods in the capital, but the major interventions, namely the construction of tunnels, only began in 2023, under the presidency of Carlos Moedas.
“Within a year, we are already talking about the end of 2026, this tunnel is ready [Monsanto-Santa Apolónia]with exit to the river, and then also the Chelas-Beato tunnel will be ready in 2029”, Carlos Moedas told journalists, visiting the project that connects Monsanto and Santa Apolónia.
The mayor recalled that the PGDL work is “more than these two tunnels”, highlighting the importance of retention basins, such as the one in Praça de Espanha, which will prevent “floods in that entire part of the city”, or the project carried out next to the Zoo, “which is also invisible to the eye, but which is a tunnel with an angle of almost three meters”.
The social democrat added “there is no work like this in Europe” and highlighted that the two large tunnels – one measuring five kilometers and one measuring one kilometer – “are made thanks to the efforts of Lisbon residents, but also thanks to the efforts of the European Union, through the Sustainable 2030 Program and ministers Castro Almeida and Graça Carvalho”, responsible for Economy and Territorial Cohesion and Environment and Energy, respectively.
“It’s good to know that even during the rainy periods, part of this drainage plan has already prevented the situation from getting worse in Lisbon”, acknowledged Moedas, who was accompanied by the two ministers and the vice-president of the European Commission for Territorial Cohesion and Reforms, Raffaele Fitto.
The mayor stressed that on the day “everything is completed” flooding in Lisbon will be avoided “and this is extremely important for the future”.
“As the Minister of Economy said a while ago, a city only has a future in terms of competitiveness and, the Minister said, if we have infrastructure, [são] these infrastructures that protect us”, he declared.
Santa Apolônia metro station will close for eight months
The mayor still does not have a date for the closure of the Santa Apolônia station of the Lisbon Metro, due to the work on the Chelas-Beato tunnel, only knowing that it should remain closed for eight months.
“We are waiting for calculations from the National Civil Engineering Laboratory to begin part of the work”, he explained.
With LUSA
