Construction of the “metrobus” in Braga starts in the first half of 2025

The construction of the BRT (BUS Rapid Transit) system in the city of Braga will begin at the beginning of the first half of 2025. The guarantee was left by Ricardo Rio during the ‘Jornadas Navegante’, which took place this Tuesday, at the National Palace of Queluz, marking the fifth anniversary of the entry into force of the Navegante Pass.

The Mayor of Braga recalled that the Municipality is “strongly committed” to the transition of urban mobility in order to ensure environmental sustainability in the municipality and contribute to this objective at a national level.

“If on the one hand we have invested a lot in renewing the Braga Urban Transport fleet, with 40% of the fleet using electric vehicles, creating an increasingly attractive offer for the population and being the fastest growing public transport company in Portugal, There is still a long way to go and with very ambitious objectives to make the transport system even more attractive. It is for this reason that the BRT system emerged which, due to its modernity, reliability, frequency and speed of circulation, will guarantee greater attractiveness, especially in the urban network where it serves the majority of the population”, said the mayor.

Remembering the different stages of this project, from the Preliminary Decision Support Study, in April 2021, to the collection of Mobile Network Data, in February 2022, the Demand Study for the Implementation of the BRT, in November 2022, from Contagem of Traffic at 49 intersections, in December 2022, and the Urban Insertion Study between 2023 and 2024, Ricardo Rio highlighted that the inclusion of the project in the latest review of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), made it possible to allocate 100 million euros in BRT in Braga, a value that corresponds to 66.6% of the project budget – in total, 150 million euros -, which will finance the construction of two of the four BRT lines. “In the initial phase, the network will have the aforementioned two lines and a length of 12.2 KM, with plans to later expand to four lines with a total length of 22.5 KM,” he explained.

As next steps, Ricardo Rio said that “at this moment the competition for the Preliminary Study will be launched, which will be followed by the design and implementation project that will last approximately six months and, subsequently, the entire process will take place of construction”.

During these meetings, Ricardo Rio highlighted that the BRT “is the most economical, attractive and quick-to-implement solution” and has a “strong component of urban regeneration, since Braga was designed with true urban highways” with traffic from neighboring municipalities. that cross the city.

“One of the great challenges of implementing the BRT is the humanization of these spaces, that is, we will use this project to slow down traffic, create circulation conditions for pedestrians and smooth modes of mobility, eliminate tunnel and viaduct crossings and create zones safer and more accessible crossings. This is a crucial dimension of the work we are developing and which will connect several traffic generating hubs in the City”, highlighted Ricardo Rio.

Recalling that “there is no work that does not cause disturbances” Ricardo Rio agreed with the other speakers’ view that this type of projects “are always susceptible to the opportunistic exploitation of oppositions that want to capitalize on the immediate discontent of citizens, instead of thinking about the merit strategy of the projects, which should deserve a broad consensus”.