"The Government approved today [25 September] the investment in two lines of the Porto Metro system," announced António Leitão Amaro in the briefing after the Council of Ministers, referring to the new metro lines to Gondomar and the metro and metrobus lines to Trofa.

"On the Trofa line, there are €184 million, which will serve the municipalities of Maia and Trofa, with 10 kilometres, nine stations, on the stretch between ISMAI, in Maia and Paradela and the Trofa interchange," said the Minister, stressing that there will be "an even greater investment in the Gondomar line," of €237 million, both to be "carried out from next year until 2031."

The new Gondomar line "will be between the Estádio do Dragão and Souto, in Gondomar," with "seven kilometres and nine stations."

"Between these two measures, there are approximately €420 million in the Porto Metropolitan Area, to expand the Porto Metro, allowing the Portuguese, the citizens who live in that region, to have this convenient public transport solution, serving a very significant population size," the government official highlighted.

Also present at the briefing, the Minister of Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho, added that this funding will be "largely ensured by the Environmental Fund, and another part by the Sustainable 2030, which is from the Cohesion Fund" of the European Union.

"It is often not understood where the Government applies the Environmental Fund. Exactly, it is to mitigate. It is a fund that comes from the carbon tax to reduce emissions in the sectors that produce the most of these emissions," she explained.

Maria da Graça Carvalho highlighted that "unfortunately, in Portugal, it is still the transport sector that has the most CO2 emissions, and it is there that more than half of the Environmental Fund, which is about €1 billion per year, is applied."

On Wednesday, Lusa reported that the public consultation on the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the new Porto Metro line between Estádio do Dragão, in Porto, and Souto, in the centre of Gondomar, ended with 84 participants, and is now awaiting an environmental assessment from the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA).

The metro journey between Souto, in the centre of Gondomar, and Estádio do Dragão, in Porto, will take 20 minutes, including 30-second stops at stations, and the planned stations are São Roque, Cerco, Parque Oriental (all three in Porto) and Lagoa, Valbom, Hospital Fernando Pessoa, Cosme Ferreira Castro, Oliveira Martins and Souto, in Gondomar.

The construction of the line will involve removing up to 533 trees, a number that may be reduced to 394, and demolishing 24 buildings, according to the study.

As for the Trofa line, the EIA is open for public consultation until 12 October, concerning the extension of the Porto Metro to Trofa, which will require a transfer from metro to metrobus at Muro, and has two possible route alternatives, which "only differ in the section between the Serra and Lantemil stations", with one "considering a surface section and a viaduct (Bougado viaduct) of 60 metres and the other of 392.5 metres".

Both alternatives foresee a construction time of two and a half years and nine stations: "Ribela, belonging to the metro system, Muro (a station shared between Metro and BRT [Bus Rapid Transit, commonly known as metrobus]) and Serra, Lantemil, Bougado, Pateiras, Paços do Concelho, Trofa Sul and Interface Trofa, belonging to the BRT system".

The only section with truly continuous urban integration of the metrobus in Trofa will require removing dozens of trees from the bypass to National Road 14 (EN14), next to the train station.

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