Can someone explain it to me?
Look at the following map of the Lisbon Metro in the airport area. The dotted red line is what they are building now, all underground. The solid blue line shows what could have been built, all on the surface, since 1993 when the Campo Grande station was opened.
I’m not against the new line being built. I just want to know why we haven’t had a metro connection to the airport in the last 15 years for 10% of the cost of the line being built now, including the advantage of having a terminal 2 station too. Can someone explain it to me?
update: in a little more detail.
Well, my education is as an Architect and Urban Planner. You can’t see it so simplistically as that. The way the lines are connected have to do with politics as well. Building on the red line means that you can connect an international rail station to an international airport, in just two stops, helping a lot of travelers.
And building on the surface on that area would be risky. You really don’t have space to build it south of 2nd Circular with the hospital and other buildings laying about and it would be very difficult to cross it over as well as it’s very crowded. Building on the north would be a security hazard. Rail lines are prone to intrusion, so imagine a lot of people trying to walk down the lines into the airport. And the airport is under ANA’s jurisdiction. It’s kind of like an harbor authority. Their rule is above the city’s. Sometimes it’s not as easy as we think.
This is the problem of so many portuguese people: must give their opinions even if they don’t know anything about the subject…
Bruno,
“Building on the red line means that you can connect an international rail station to an international airport, in just two stops, helping a lot of travelers.”
Sure, but I’m not against the new line, I’m just wondering why they didn’t build the relatively cheap option years ago.
“Building on the north would be a security hazard. Rail lines are prone to intrusion, so imagine a lot of people trying to walk down the lines into the airport.”
It could be completely buffered, and it would only give any intruders access to the airport stations.
And the airport is under ANA’s jurisdiction. It’s kind of like an harbor authority. Their rule is above the city’s.
Sure, but having a Metro connection would only increase the value of the service that the airport provides, no? It would be in their best interest.
Sometimes it’s not as easy as we think.
Nothing on this scale is “easy”. But digging several kilometers under soil which isn’t all public property is certainly harder than convincing the airport authorities, trust me.
Miguel, who is your comment directed to?
Aren’t we building a new airport and “throwing away” this one? There is a dubious need for this subway NOW that we know the airport will no longer be there, although we wished for it for so long.
I also think that a surface connection (soooo much cheaper) wouldn’t be a bad idea. The argument that you connect the train and the airport is a good one, but for someone who has Lisbon as the final destination it’s a miserable one. You are a few yards away from connecting to downtown but if you take the subway, you’ll get the big tour of the tunnels before you reach Alameda.
The argument of invasion of the rail system seems a bit exaggerated. Metro do Porto has a surface station right in front of the terminal and ANA doesn’t seem to have a problem with that.
The choice of going underground via Portela can also be understood as a way of connecting those large residential areas.
But in the end, Metro de Lisboa, known for investing heavily on poor and outdated solutions (the new-with-obsolete-tech-and-still-doesn’t-work ticketing system, the Telheiras extension, the Terreiro do Paco engineering, …).
Not putting aside the possibility of more obscure motives, I agree with Bruno Figueiredo’s point of view of facilitating travelers. If one knows a bit of Lisbon history, a certain reminiscence of the functionality of the Avenida Entre Aeroportos (today, Avenida de Berlim) comes to mind. 
The extention to the blue line would have to go underground too. Between Campo-Grande and the airport, right in the path you draw there are: PMOII-Calvanas (one of Metro’s train parks, repair shops and employee facilities), the airport’s maintenance routes, terminal 2 and the end of the smaller runway. Plus, even if the line could be done on the surface for 1/10th of the cost, it would serve few people, wheras the extension under construction goes through populated areas.
Carlos,
What I had in mind would be something like this.
As I said on the post, I’m not against the new line, but you do have to agree if that line (the one I’m wondering about) had been built when they finished the Campo Grande station 15 years ago, it would have transported millions of passengers since then to and from the airport.
I know the reason for both the delay and the chosen path,, and I could tell you.. of course, then I’d have to kill you all
nah.. just kidding
but sure it’s obscure… but like everything obscure you just have to wait a few years and it will eventually make some sense under a certain light
but why should one care?
André, we should care because they’re doing it with our %”#$%#”#$ money from the considerable taxes we must pay…
sure! I just like to fool around a little whenever I see a good person stressing out “what they could have done”…
please do care! but don’t forget there are too many !#$!”#$ people just letting go of their money and not fighting, not caring.
so it’s like the real millions are coming from people who don’t care… like they’re buying a “do what you wish, as long as you leave me alone, feed me tv, and bring home me the euro cup” situation
My guess:
* the redline links the Airport with the Gare do Oriente (the main hub of public transportation: train, bus, metro, and in the future the high-speed train lines);
* the area the red line crosses has a lot of people, one of the major “sleeping” sections of Lisbon;
* the blue extension, would be cheap and probably easy to build, but would not serve nothing but the airport;
* in the future, the red line could even be extended like the blue line, connecting to Campo Grande.
that’s my best guess.
Best regards,
Andre, it’s just the old panem et circenses from the old times, but with cellphones and football.
I agree with Miguel and Bruno. To choose a path for a subway is not a easy and simple task. To me your option doesn’t make any sense. By the way I’m a civil engineer.
Nuno, I didn’t say it was an easy and simple task. I asked a question, which I think I’m entitled to ask because the Metro uses public funds, and I (like all of us here) contribute to those funds through our taxes. Surface metro access to airports is a reality in many countries, and I’m sure the vertical component of a surface rail line where I proposed could fit the ICAO rules pretty comfortably.
Well…the answer to you question is written in a report somewhere about the metro planning, which started long time ago and I’m sure it had many public hearings. It is not just about the ICAO rules it is about the viability of the project. For example, the airport is going to leave that location in about 7 years and you propose to build a line just to serve it…
Nuno, I can make a friendly wager over that both the airport will still be working in 7 years time and that the line between Encarnação and the airport will probably cost more than what I proposed, with the disadvantage that it will not serve Terminal 2.
Regardless of that, my question was: why didn’t they build the line from Campo Grande in the past 15 years? I explicitly stated that I’m not against the new line, just wondering why it wasn’t built. I wasn’t stating an opinion, I was asking a question (I concede that it was asked from a skeptical viewpoint), and I was really curious if someone would appear telling us they knew why.
You are seeing the map in 2D. In real-life, that path is all but flat. It would be easier to build a tunnel.
But, the real issue here is financing. These expensive projects get *a lot* of funding from the EU. A line connecting an airport to a major railway station (now one of the busiest in europe) and going through populated areas is in a better position to get funding.
This is an interesting question you’re posing, ppinheiro. I didn’t had time to read all the comments, but my funny guess is “taxi lobbies”? 
Now, more seriously, I’ve got another question: How come they took more than 10 years just to decide where a new international airport should be built? That is not good for Portugal’s growth and global competitivity.
How come, they still don’t have plans to build a seriously big international harbour, like the ones at Barcelona, or Valencia? Do you know how much sea traffic of commodities and resources pass off our shores without EVER stopping by? Cuz we don’t have a decent harbour to propose to them??!!! Do you know how many goods come to PT from ES by road, after ship unloading in some decent ES harbour? (I don’t know them myself, but I’m getting really scared if NO ONE in PT ever answered these questions).
How come they still don’t have plans to build some really effective power plants (I’m talking nuclear here – I’m from a physics background, and I know I have to take the risk and live nearby one)?! We’re importing WAY more energy than we produce, we’re totally power-dependent – THIS IS VERY BAD in the next years to come – just a feeling I have … .
Why aren’t these issues, SO STRATEGIC, brought about more often by politicians, and the media? Are they all morons? Is it just because the commitment goes beyond the scope of their 4-year-political-warrant? Is this a land of political imbeciles I live in? Other countries have their political imbeciles, yes, but they come with big airports, big harbours and lots of power plants (including nuclear ones).
Well, sorry for unloading all that on you all, but I really feel those are important issues that every Portuguese should think about…
My take (and I haven’t read all comments before):
Not enough people/cost ratio.
As for the rest? Why Loures, Caneças, etc don’t have subway yet?
Loures has been talked about since I came to live where I am about 14 years ago. But we have a monopoly going on here with Barraqueiro (who bought the Rodoviaria competitor).
We’re a very, very small country. 
Daniel, but it would have been VERY cheap compared to anything else. If the country had (laudable) concerns like yours in mind, we wouldn’t have built so many stadiums for the Euro 2004. Take the Leiria stadium, how many games were played there during the Euro? It’s still unfinished…
I don’t know if it would be very cheap like you say.
I do know that there’s a lot less population getting served hence the worst people/cost ratio. Bottom line, most of us don’t need to go to the airport at least not as often as we go to other places. The only ones who need it are those who work there and foreigners/people catching a plane.
If it were made just to serve the airport you would have no long term guaranteed return. Example: the airport is going away and it will be a while before you have people living there.
If they do it like it’s being done it will help boost land sale prices from the current airport and it will be ready about the time you have people living where the airport is now. And in Portugal… land speculation rules.
Just my two cents
Daniel, so how do you explain the current investment in the Encarnação – Airport line? All underground, what will be the cost? What’s the ratio on that one, also considering it will only be finished in two or three years time?
Land speculation.
When the airport is gone what do you think they will put there?
Probably condos, schools, infrastructures (maybe an hospital?).
Besides I do think that they will connect that to Campo Grande just like they are doing with the red line and Saldanha and S. Sebastião.
It’s a matter of time and ROI.
I think they don’t wanted to exclude the people who are living in Encarnacao, Moscavide, and Oriente. I don’t know, but maybe it’s a place of rich and influental people. It’s always like that. All around the world.
One word springs to mind: Carris.