Gaia Digs In Against Its High-Speed Station at Santo Ovídio on the Eve of Monday's Start to Works on the Porto to Lisbon Line

Construction of Portugal's first high-speed railway is formally launched on Monday, and Vila Nova de Gaia has chosen the last working day before it to say, again, that the line's station is in the wrong place.

In a statement issued on Friday night, the city council "reaffirms its opposition to the planned location for the station in Santo Ovídio" and demands that the bodies responsible reconsider, "to avoid deep and prolonged disruption to the functioning of the city". It wants an alternative site in the Mafamude and Vilar do Paraíso area, further south, to be properly assessed, including with its own environmental impact study.

Five years of lorries, the mayor warns

The mayor, Luís Filipe Menezes, points to at least five years of disruption to traffic, around 200 lorries a day moving "an exceptional volume of earth", a risk of "very serious losses" for local shops, and harder access to the Hospital de Gaia along Rua Conceição Fernandes. On top of that, the council says, come the environmental and urban consequences in one of the busiest parts of the city.

Menezes argues there is "still time to move the station to a place where nothing needs to be dug up, a flat place where the city can grow well to the south". He added: "The work can start on Monday, but there is still time to do quickly what is needed, starting with the Environmental Impact Study."

The council says it has made the same case to the authorities since 10 November 2025, five days after the current executive took office. It insists that it "supports the high-speed line, but rejects the location of the station in Santo Ovídio", and that its support "is not a blank cheque".

Monday's ceremony in Aveiro

The opposition lands just as the project reaches the ground. The AVAN Norte consortium, led by Mota-Engil, which is building and will maintain the 71-kilometre section from Porto-Campanhã to Oiã, in Oliveira do Bairro, marks the start of works on Monday with a public session at its site in Aveiro at 15:30. The infrastructure minister, Miguel Pinto Luz, is due to attend, and Paulo Carmona, chairman of Infraestruturas de Portugal, will present the project.

The Porto to Oiã concession, signed on 29 July 2025, costs about two billion euros and is backed by 875 million euros from the European Investment Bank and 480 million from the EU's Connecting Europe Facility. On 1 October the Diário da República published an urgent declaration of public utility for the expropriation of 1,076 plots in Oliveira do Bairro, Aveiro and Albergaria-a-Velha.

The Gaia stretch is not new ground for dispute. As we reported in September, the subsections through Gaia had been held up by the design of the new Douro bridge and the siting of the station, before the environment agency issued their environmental permit in August.

Night works on the A29

Drivers will feel the project before passengers do. From Monday until 13 November, between 21:00 and 06:00, geotechnical surveys will restrict traffic on three stretches of the A29: between Albergaria-a-Velha and Estarreja, between Ovar and Espinho, and at the A29 and A44 junction in Canelas, in Gaia.

The full line is due to link Porto and Lisbon in one hour and 15 minutes by 2032, with possible stops in Gaia, Aveiro, Coimbra and Leiria.