The Arroios station on the Lisbon Metro Green Line reopened this Tuesday fully refurbished, now with capacity to receive six-car trains and equipped with elevators that give it full accessibility.
7h45. The Minister for the Environment arrives at the renovated Arroios station. He left through one door, two PSP officers through another so as not to appear on the media cameras, which were strategically placed to catch the minister - the image reporters had received a prior signal as to where the metro would stop and from which door the government official who manages the Lisbon Metro within his ministry's portfolio would exit.
João Pedro Matos Fernandes came to inaugurate the renovated and expanded Arroios Metro station. Alongside the Chairman of the Lisbon Metro Board of Directors, Vitor Domingues dos Santos, he made small talk about what had changed and what was different, pointing here and there, gestures that always look good on camera. You could hardly make out what he was saying, the mask didn't help. Matos Fernandes walked along one side of the pier, then the other, went up to one of the station's atriums and then the other. I went outside for a while so I could take my mask off and breathe a little. It was drizzling, so he didn't leave the station much. The visit ended with a session and a statement to journalists. The Minister then headed to Baixa-Chiado station.
The Arroios station on the Lisbon Metro Green Line reopened this Tuesday fully refurbished, now with capacity to receive six-car trains and equipped with elevators that give it full accessibility. With an investment of 6.67 million euros, the contract, now completed two years late, also included the refurbishment of the atriums, including the reorganization of the operating support spaces.
With the reopening of Arroios station, the Lisbon Metro now has 41 stations (out of 56) with full accessibility, i.e. they have access between the surface and the boarding pier for people with reduced mobility, which corresponds to 73.2% of all the stations on the network. Metro is currently investing in introduction of elevators at Cidade Universitária and Entre Campos stationsboth on the Yellow Line.
The pier was extended on either side of the station, instead of just on one sideas happened with the enlargement of other stations (for example, Areeiro). The solution found allows for six-car trains but, at each end of the station, the platform is narrow and may require some gymnastics on the part of some passengersThere are also signs for people with reduced mobility or who are carrying large volumes such as a suitcase or a bicycle. In these sections, the signage near the end of the platform has been reinforced and there is a sign that reads "Narrow quay. Please ease the passage".
New art to discover in Arroios
Located in Praça do Chile, Arroios station has four entrances, is one of the main stations in one of the most populated parishes in the city of Lisbon. Passengers, particularly residents of the Arroios area, will no longer have to travel to Alameda or Anjos stations to access the metro. Local shops and services will also benefit from this reopening, which will revitalize the area.
Arroios station began operating in June 1972, with the opening of the Anjos/Alvalade section. At the time, it had an architectural project by Diniz Gomes and plastic intervention by Maria Keil, who chose a simple module formed by parallel yellow and white or yellow and blue lines and composed rectangular geometric figures that stand out either by their colors or by the vertical or horizontal orientation of the lines. The present refurbishment of the Arroios station, now with the architectural project of Paulo Brito da Silva, included the replacement of Maria Keil's tile panels on the side walls of the atriums, reinterpreting them in the areas where the area of covered walls increases, since these walls now have two floors (pier and atrium).
The station now has two distinct areas joined by a honed black granite floor with trim pieces in the same stone. We can see the areas where the old station remains, such as the 70 meters of pier under a vaulted gallery or the connecting corridors between the piers and the accesses with walls covered in glazed clay tiles in different whites, forming a random pattern that is both hexagonal and pentagonal. The two atriums, on the tops of the piers where the extensions are made, have been extensively altered to include Maria Keil panels as cladding on the side walls.
The quayside has also been integrated with a tile panel by Nikias Skapinakis (a Portuguese painter of Greek descent), called "Cortina Mirabolante", a ceramic triptych about 15 meters long, made up of three panels in warm, strong colors. This panel, now made public, is a unusual work produced using an innovative technique in which the tile is cut into various shapes and sizes and then glued together as if it were a jigsaw puzzle.
Two years late
It should be remembered that The refurbishment and extension of the Arroios station on the Lisbon Metro Green Line began in July 2017.with completion scheduled for the first half of 2019. Due to contractual defaults by the company hired at the time and also taking into account the public interest underlying the execution of this contract, the Metro de Lisboa was forced to terminate its contract in January 2019, and the new tender was relaunched in February 2019.
After the tender phase was completed, the procedure was sent to the Court of Auditors in November 2019 for prior approval, whose Declaration of Conformity was issued on December 27, 2019 and sent to Metro de Lisboa on the 30th of the same month. In January 2020, the consignment note was signed with the current contractor, which corresponds to the formal handover of the work, which had been scheduled for completion this September.
The Arroios Metro station officially opened on Tuesday, despite the fact that the metro stopped at 8 p.m. the previous day at the station (it was initially scheduled to open at 6 p.m. but there were last-minute delays). Outside the station, the construction hoardings have disappeared and the shopkeepers in Plaza del Chile now have an unobstructed square. The sidewalks and connections have been reinstated, awaiting a major redevelopment of the square, foreseen in the municipal program A Square in Every Neighborhood and which could be carried out at a later date as part of the redevelopment of Avenida Almirante Reis, which is also planned.
