According to a preliminary study presented to the government earlier this week, a surface metro planned to run between the Algarve cities of Olhão, Faro and Loulé will be 38 kilometers long and will benefit 185,000 people, around 40% of the population of the Algarve.
The preliminary tables of the total costs of the project could be up to 300 million euros, for either the solution based on electric vehicles or the one based on hydrogen vehicles.
“This project is a truly structuring project for the articulation between three municipalities that, in practice, are at a huge distance if they are not properly articulated", said the Prime Minister, António Costa, in Olhão where he travelled to attend the presentation as part of the itinerary of the “Closer Government” initiative that took place on Wednesday and Thursday.
The light metro between Olhão, Faro and Loulé will be 38 kilometers long and have 24 stops, serving around 185,000 residents in the three municipalities, of which 70,000 residents will be less than 600 metres from a metro stop.
"With this financing, we help to boost the economic base of the entire region", said the prime minister, adding that the investment should still be made during the structural funds programming period that ends in 2030.
The metro line will connect to many services in the region, such as the Gago Coutinho International Airport and the Gambelas campus of the University of Algarve.
According to the previous study, around 40,000 trips can be made per day, with possible extensions of the line to Albufeira and Fuseta also being studied.
Source https://postal.pt/
