About the new Lisbon airport
As is well known, the location of a new Lisbon airport has been a topic of discussion for 50 years. I don’t think anyone will be interested in prolonging this sad national “record” of indecision, as it sometimes seems.
I don’t have to comment on airports. But, since Montijo was mentioned, to place an airport in parallel with Portela, it is possible to dislike this solution.
First of all, for environmental reasons, which are of two types. First, the aggression that would be made to the bird species found there. Second, no less important, because the Portela-Montijo option would exacerbate the noise that already bothers a large number of residents of greater Lisbon.
According to the European Environment Agency, the Portuguese capital is the second most publicized European capital in terms of air traffic noise.
I found this information in an article by Prof. Carlos Matias Ramos, in the newspaper “Público” of the 7th of this month. But get more.
This article criticizes certain decisions, which are without even an attempt to justify them.
This is the case, for example, of the defense of Montijo as a cheaper and faster construction solution. The author of the article reminds us that the construction of the airport in Montijo will have to be done completely from scratch.
Now, in Alcochete “we can build, in an initial phase, a runway with 4,000 meters in length, allowing twice the capacity of movements per hour of what is planned for Montijo and receiving all types of planes”.
On the other hand, I have not heard a relevant prediction mentioned: that only trips of more than 600 damages will be used by plane, as the train is preferable, if it is fast.
Therefore, it is important to equate the railway with the plane in this matter of the new airport.
Now, between us, the train has been losing ground to the highway for many decades.
And the current government does not seem capable of reversing this situation.