Porto
August 2-5
A visit to one of Portugal's most idyllic coastal cities was made even more interesting by seeking out developments in the city's transport. I spent my birthday in the city of Porto, which is a relatively small city, with an area of 41.66 km² and home to 263,000 inhabitants. With a short stay of three days, I was keen to explore all what the region had on offer in terms of transport, and I was lucky to meet some amazing people along the way.
City in Context
Porto is famous for its history, culture and architecture, including its iconic bridges, Nata pastries, port wine (delicious!), and the scenic Douro river. What's more, the old city center became a UNESCO world heritage site in 1996. In terms of mobility, serious traffic congestion caused by suburbanization in the early 2000s has led to excessive traffic flows during peak hours. Thus, fundamental improvements in the public transport system and a complete rethinking of people’s travel habits towards more sustainable modes have been the focus in Portugal's second largest city.
Longer trips and urban sprawl caused choke points at the city’s main entry and exit points during peak hours. Today, the car is the first-choice mode of transport with a share of 43%. This compares to a modal share of 25% for public transport and 32% for walking. In past years, transport policy in the region has primarily focused on the extension of road capacity, but is now increasingly concerned with the improvement of the public transport system. The city's new metro system and approach to participatory planning were the main reasons I wanted to visit the city to study mobility.
Porto has worked collaboratively with other cities across the EU via the CIVITAS ELAN project to implement changes in mobility that provide citizens with high-quality mobility while limiting adverse environmental impacts. For example, Porto opened a “mobility shop” to provide information, gather travellers’ feedback, and monitor mobility issues in the city center. In addition, a trip planning system that provides real-time information on services of different operators has been launched to simplify travel via sustainable transport modes within the metropolitan Porto region. Also, Porto's largest multi-modal interchange point at Campanha central station is slated for construction, and was designed and built following a public and participatory tender process. Projects like these simultaneously improve public space and access to transport, and also ensure that citizens who will make frequent use of the interchange have a say on the final design. The aim of the project is to Porto’s city center more vibrant and accessible from Porto's suburbs.
Porto has worked collaboratively with other cities across the EU via the CIVITAS ELAN project to implement changes in mobility that provide citizens with high-quality mobility while limiting adverse environmental impacts. For example, Porto opened a “mobility shop” to provide information, gather travellers’ feedback, and monitor mobility issues in the city center. In addition, a trip planning system that provides real-time information on services of different operators has been launched to simplify travel via sustainable transport modes within the metropolitan Porto region. Also, Porto's largest multi-modal interchange point at Campanha central station is slated for construction, and was designed and built following a public and participatory tender process. Projects like these simultaneously improve public space and access to transport, and also ensure that citizens who will make frequent use of the interchange have a say on the final design. The aim of the project is to Porto’s city center more vibrant and accessible from Porto's suburbs.
Metro do Porto
Gary Hildebrand, a professor of landscape architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design, likened the historic center of Porto to "the phenomena we see in some American cities, there's a kind of hollowed out core. It's historic and it's beautiful, but until this metro project came about, not so vital. The jobs are not in the downtown, and over the last generation people had moved to the boarder reaches." To Hildebrand, the introduction of the Metro system was "like reviving the circulation in a human. The center could thrive again."
The first proposal of a surface light rail network connecting the nine municipalities of the Porto Metropolitan Area was solicited in 1991. At the time the municipalities of Porto, and nearby Gaia and Matosinhos commissioned a feasibility study. Encouraged by the results, the Portuguese national government incorporated the public enterprise "Metro do Porto" to carry out the work in 1993. Finally, in 1995 an international rehabilitation tender was launched for the design, construction, supply, and maintenance of the new metro system. Normetro, a team led by Pritzker Prize winning architect Eduardo Soto de Moura, was awarded the tender. Execution of the project began in 1999.
Design
The project comprises of four lines: two urban lines on a West-East (Matosinhos–Maia) and North-South (São João–Vila Nova de Gaia) direction, and two suburban lines, Matosinhos–Póvoa and Matosinhos–Trofa. With around 70 kilometers of underground and surface track, over sixty stations, some of which are underground, the project was presented a major design challenge due to a sensitive urban fabric and complex geography.
From the beginning, Eduardo Souto de Moura was meant to be the sole designer for the whole of the Metro. He broke down the traditional dichotomy that exists between architects, engineers and contractors, working embedded within the project's technical team. This integrated approach, in which all interventions came under one autonomous project, ultimately ensured a uniform image, high quality assurance, and cost control for the project. For Souto de Moura, this afforded the greatest opportunity to fundamentally transform the areas covered by the stations, including pavements, lighting, pedestrian routes, and street furniture. As a result, the Metro not only connected residents on the city's periphery with the attractions of the city center, but also forged a collective identity through the design of unique stations that conformed to each stations geographical context. I found this attention toward improving the public realm with infrastructure as an example that all new Metro projects should strive to uphold.
Integration with the Bus Network
When the Metro project began work, the need to come to a consensus about integration between modes was paramount. This was achieved through two forms: fare integration and physical integration. Fare intregration came in the form of the Andante card, a single ticket which is accepted by all public transport operators in the Porto metropolitan area. Physical integration has involved the redesigning of STCP's (the largest bus operator in the city center) extensive bus network to eliminate redundant routes, create new routes, and optimize integration with, the new Metro.
Results of a study done by researchers at the University of Porto show that despite the number of interchanges and travel times for buses increasing, new strategic networks are rationalized with significant cost savings and faster travel via Metro.
Project Contracting and Financial Structure
A look behind the curtain of Porto's shiny new Metro revealed a complex process involving stakeholders at all levels. These included local, regional, and national Portuguese government bodies, private operators, contractors, and engineers. With so many stakeholders, governance of transport is where the fragmented responsibilities, regulatory constraints, conflicting policies and goals, and organizational cultures and dynamics converge, resulting in a system that either succeeds or fails to deliver resident's needs for overall mobility.
In the case of the Metro do Porto's contracting process, the Oporto Metropolitan Metro Company organized the concession, awarding the project tender for operation and construction of the service to Metro do Porto, S.A. (MdP) for a period of 50 years in 1998. Also in 1998, Metro do Porto S.A. subcontracted the concession services to the Normetro group of complementary companies. This consortium has been responsible for designing, building, operating and maintaining the metro services in the first phase (2010). In 2010, Normetro’s concession was replaced with a 5-year concession for the operation and maintenance of the metro network to the private consortium Via Porto. This case study details more succinctly MdP's unique contract structure.
The project's financing paints a much messier picture. Ultimately, financing comes down to risk allocation. In the case of MdP, risk sharing was difficult to determine between public and private companies. From 1998-2008, all of MdP's shareholders were public bodies and companies, and therefore, all of the risk was allocated to the public sector. This risk, coupled with operating losses and significant debt service from 2004-2008, led to the retendering of the project as a PPP. In January 2007, Metro do Porto, entered into an interest rate swap agreement with Santander Bank on a principal value of €89 million, with the intent being to reduce the interest costs that Metro do Porto was incurring and place more risk in the hands of the private sector. This was a complex swap agreement that brought short term financial parity to MdP, but proved catastrophic in the long run.
Essentially what happened was the company entered into an agreement that would turn very sour if interest rates fell as precipitously as they did during the financial crisis of 2008. As a result, the rate that MdP had to pay on its swaps reached as high as 40 percent. The particular "snowball clause" and resulting lawsuit became a case study for students of project finance in business schools the world over. One can't help but ask, should the MdP have been able to anticipate the possible losses, and, was Santander following good practice from a risk management perspective? Nevertheless, experts have called the transaction as "a contender for the worst trade of all time." In the future, public sector entities should be especially careful when dealing with complex and structured transactions involving swaps and derivatives.
Conclusion
Despite the project's financial troubles, the ultimate result is still a well-designed Metro system that connects the shifting metropolitan region of Porto in a beautiful fashion. It was a fantastic case study to visit and explore firsthand.
To the left, a video by Harvard School of Design to recognize the MdP as the 2013 recipient of the Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design for making a "positive contribution to the public realm of a city and improves the quality of urban life in that context."
Stay with Manhal, Civil Engineering student at the Polytechnic Institute of Porto
I was fortunate to have stayed in Porto with Manhal, who I was put in touch with thanks to my advisor, Dr. Lori Troxel. Manhal's story is unlike any person I have met during my travels thus far. Originally from Syria, he fled the country back when the Assad regime began to crack down on protests against the government. Since then, he has been to Greece, where he met Dr. Troxel at a refugee camp. While there, he worked as a translator to help doctors give treatement to refugees. Just two years ago, Manhal and his family were resettled in Portugal as part of the UNHCR's resettlement program.
Before the war, he worked with his father's construction company as a foreman and project manager, overseeing complex building projects in Syria. He told me he has always had an affinity for the mixture of people skills and technical know-how involved with construction. That is why he is seeking to obtain his bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering at Porto's leading technical university. In this manner, he will receive a degree that is recognized throughout Europe and much of the world, where he dreams of continuing what he does best: leading the line on the job site.
Manhal and I discussed what it was like to come from a country with such conflict to one that has social and economic problems of his own. He admits that it has been difficult to integrate given cultural differences and the difficulty to work in construction without a European degree. But he has become fluent in Portuguese and has just finished his first of three years at University. By establishing himself in Portugal, he hopes to be able to work on infrastructure and building projects as part of a multinational company. We discussed out goals together, and exchanged valuable advice to further our respective careers. Over the course of my stay in Porto, I learned a lot from Manhal's persistence and perseverance, and we made plans to meet again as soon as we both were able to. Not only was Manhal an excellent guide to his new city, but he showed me that the world is full of opportunity and diverse perspectives which can be valuable across borders and projects one engages oneself in.
