The link between Faro Airport and the Algarve’s existing railway line may go ahead if the hurdles put in its way by the current Planning and Infrastructure minister can be overcome.
Citing, funding, environmental and useage issues, Pedro Marques said the line might go ahead "if not before, at the beginning of the next Community framework," (i.e. after 2020)
This positon statement was made last Friday at the Socialist Party’s New Year dinner in Faro and offers little hope to those who claim the link is essential for Faro airport fully to perform as a modern travel connection and that the rail link has been discussed for so long by successive governments that already it could have been built many time over.
Marques attempted to persuade his audience that he was fully behind the rail link and that he has been studying it with intensity, especially when looking at the cost:benefit analysis.
Assuring all concerned that "preparatory studies will be made” for the line, Marques said this rail connection, "only makes sense if we are able to boost the connections of the stations to the main catchment areas with intermodal transport."
Pedro Marques believes that with local connections, for which he as minister ultimately is responsible, "we can greatly increase the demand for the use of the railroad."
"If it is possible, from the environmental point of view, if we are able to integrate transport in the Algarve from an intermodal point of view, this link must be a priority of the Socialist Party government to carry out.”
Pedro Marques ended by saying that he undertook the commitment to place the project "as one of my priorities for future work on Portugal’s railways,” leaving the Algarve in no doubt at all that he has no intention at all of seeing this project through.
