Moreira will not "waste any more time" with the metrobus

Porto City Council President Rui Moreira said this Monday that he will not “waste any more time” on the metrobus and will leave this matter to the next executive.

"I will not waste any more time on this matter (...) and I would like to warn that the next executive must be very careful in transferring this specific responsibility from Metro do Porto to Sociedade de Transportes Coletivos do Porto (STCP), to safeguard the interests of STCP and ensure — as the transport authority — that this transfer is carried out within the framework that seems minimal to us, which is the guarantee of technical safeguards, which we do not have at this time," said Rui Moreira at the executive meeting this Monday, where he also said that the municipality has no guarantee that the project will be viable.

The mayor revealed that the municipality received, last week, a letter from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Housing, supervised by Minister Miguel Pinto Luz, about the quadripartite memorandum of understanding between the State, Porto City Council, Metro do Porto and the Porto Public Transport Company (STCP) and distributed its response to the minister among the councillors of the various elected political forces, in a letter to which Lusa had access.

“This memorandum should define the responsibilities regarding the future transfer of the metrobus operation to STCP, a process that has been dragging on since May 2023 (…) and the municipality's concerns were not addressed, namely the responsibility that Metro do Porto may have in the event of the project not being viable”, can be read in Moreira's response, dated Friday.

In the letter, the mayor said he considered that the government had “objectively and tacticly” allowed Metro do Porto to “misinform the population” by allowing it to announce in July 2024 that the service would begin in time for the start of the school year, in September of the same year.

"I understand that, at this time, there are no objective conditions to continue solving a complex problem, which is only not pressing because we are talking about a government project that has begun but does not appear to have an end. In any case, it will not be completed during my term as mayor. Therefore, it should be the new municipal executive who addresses this matter with the government and its ministry," he wrote.

On June 7, STCP, the future operator of the metrobus, considered it "unfeasible" to reverse into the opposite lane at the top of Avenida da Boavista, and stated that it wanted the vehicle to go around the roundabout, to avoid compromising service and congesting traffic.

STCP described that, during the tests, “the vehicle had to invade several roads adjacent to its dedicated lane, requiring the complete interruption of the remaining traffic flows” and that “ the conditions are not met ” for the maneuver to be carried out “repetitively and safely in a real context, without any police support, given the negative impact on circulation and the cadence of the service that is intended to be implemented”.

On June 12, Metro do Porto assured Lusa that “the entire metrobus project” was carried out in conjunction with Porto City Council and that the U-turn at the Boavista roundabout was tested before the project began.

“On January 10, 2023, even before the start of the work, a test of the U-turn was carried out [next to the Boavista roundabout] with an STCP articulated bus, in which members of Porto City Council were present,” the company told Lusa.

On January 30, 2023, at the presentation of the project that was reported by Lusa and the municipality, the “introduction of a micro-roundabout in front of Casa da Música, necessary for the hydrogen metrobus to change direction in 30 seconds” was indicated as one of the “main new features” compared to what had been revealed about the project.

In a video posted on the municipality's official website, Moreira stated that the council had been " fine-tuning the project with the president of Metro " and "the original solution that required the vehicle to go around the Boavista roundabout was not necessary after all."

The metrobus will connect the House of Music to the Empire Square (in 12 minutes) and to Anémona (in 17) and is scheduled to run to the stations Casa da Música, Guerra Junqueiro, Bessa, Pinheiro Manso, Serralves, João de Barros and Império, in the first service, and in the second Antunes Guimarães, Garcia de Orta, Nevogilde, Castelo do Queijo and Salvador City Square (Anémona).

The service's vehicles will be hydrogen buses, visually similar to those of the conventional metro, and built for 29.5 million euros by a consortium that includes CaetanoBus and DST Solar, including the power supply infrastructure.

The metrobus project costs around 76 million euros.