Oeiras City Council speaks of an "obsolete infrastructure" and insists on the "urgent need for a thorough rehabilitation of the site".
Last December's downpours forced the Algés station to be closed twice due to flooding. This caused damage to electronic equipment, such as the validators (which have since been replaced) and the access doors (which have since been disabled). For several days after the floods, the station could not be used and was closed, with CP trains on the Cascais line not stopping there. Approximately nine months later, the Algés station was flooded again, but this time without flooding completely.
The alert was issued at 6 p.m. on Sunday, September 3, a day characterized by a heavy rainfall in the Lisbon metropolitan area, which coincided with a period of high tide. These two factors caused 20 centimeters of accumulated water and the closure of the station for two hours due to the lack of safety conditions, as reported by RTP.
Although the railway line and the boarding platforms at Algés station are on the surface, they can be accessed via an underground pedestrian passage (where there are also some shops). It is this tunnel that, being in a flood bed - next to the seafront and in the course of the Algés stream - floods whenever there is a big downpour aligned with periods of high tide. That's what happened in December and what happened again last Sunday; and it's what has happened in the past.
The risk of the Algés station flooding on these days had been predicted. Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP), the public company under the central government that manages the entire national railway infrastructure, had posted the expected high tide times for the days between August 30, Wednesday, and September 5, Tuesday. "Given the high tides, it is likely that there will be minor flooding in this underpass", could be read on various paper notices placed throughout the station tunnel. "We're trying to minimize the situation."
On the IP side, there was little preventive action to safeguard against further flooding, with the placement of the aforementioned warnings. Oeiras Civil Protection has already placed wooden planks in the lower part of the station, in the tunnel, to allow passengers to move around without getting wet in the event of flooding. Meanwhile, IP still has no ambition to solve the problem structurally.
Algés is one of the main railway stations in the Lisbon metropolitan area. Between the municipality of Oeiras and Lisbon, it connects with a bus terminal, where lines arrive or depart for the municipalities of Amadora and Sintra, and directly serves a population of 50 to 60 thousand people. The Oeiras City Council, which manages the area where the Algés station is located, aims for a major intermodal interface in that area But for that, it depends on IP and the government. Before the summer, Mayor Isaltino Morais had already advocated a solution for Algés; now, in the face of the new flooding on Sunday, the municipality is once again talking about a solution for Algés. "urgent need for a thorough rehabilitation of the site".
In a statement published on social media, the Oeiras City Council indicates that the Algés station is a "obsolete infrastructure" and features "lack of capacity to drain the accumulated water". "The Municipality of Oeiras has successively alerted those responsible for managing the station - Infraestruturas de Portugal and the Ministry of Infrastructure - to the urgent need for a thorough rehabilitation of the site"indicates. "The works that are currently being carried out are mere palliatives that do not provide a solution. The Municipality of Oeiras, through its Civil Protection services, will continue to provide the necessary support to ensure the safety of the population and prevent material damage."
