Highspeed agreement
This entry was posted on Friday, September 26th, 2003 at 11:18 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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ed says:
according to what i read in the newspaper porto is actually connected to vigo. i know that’d be the most useful highspeed train connection for me…
ed says:
and you forgot the obvious porto-lisbon connectiong in your map which is the core of the tgv project. the discussion between governments was on how would that line be connected to spain. btw, it seems there’s quite a bit of theorical discussion on where to build the porto tgv station. it seems a gigantic bridge parallel to the arrábida bridge is projected, and the question is whether to build the station almost at the immediate end (in the boavista area) or to build it next to the sá carneiro airport. i think the first solution is far better for obvious reasons - porto shouldn’t be just a city near the airport, it’s supposed to be the other way round.
Andre Restivo says:
The Porto-Vigo connection has been ditched according to the Radio Renascenca website:
http://www.rr.pt/noticia.asp?idnoticia=85779
Outra reacção é a de Fernando Gomes, o ex-presidente da Câmara do Porto que defendia uma ligação por TGV à Galiza.
K says:
Trackback: Highspeed agreement:
Megalitic project oppositors are going to have a field day: The TGV project for the portuguese/spanish lines has been approved.
I can\\’t but disapprove the design. This design:
On such a small country, we are having problems with population concentration in Lisbon, as a result of investment errors through the last 10-15 years.
With this design Lisbon is the hub of communication by train. It is one more incentive for creating new companies and new jobs in Lisbon.
I admit that when air companies like Air Luxor start connecting Porto-Lisbon for 30 and Porto-Madrid for 40, competing against air travel is difficult, with any design. Moreover, portuguese trains nowadays barely compete with autos — i.e. if you travel alone, it costs just slightly less to travel by train. If you fit two or more into a car, then the option is obvious.
Agreed, TGV\\’s aren\\’t for cargo. However, it was a common understanding that the redesign of the train network would take into account the need to move goods into and out of spain. Current ferrying is done mostly by road, through the saturated IP4 and IP5. Vigo has a very modern seaport and is already connected to the spanish cargo railroads. A cargo connection to Vigo is not covered and should be.
Unfortunately, exactly when our government is scaring everybody with belt-tightening measures, we see two big projects whose main purpose is sending money down the drain. The TGV, with projected costs of 6000 million euro, and the purchase of submarines at the projected cost of 1000 million euro.