Third Tagus crossing between Chelas and Barreiro

The Government decided to build the bridge that will become the third crossing over the Tagus River in Lisbon between Chelas and Barreiro. The bridge is at the same time for road and rail.

This new crossing will fix the bottlenecks of the rail infrastructure in the connections south.

Under this scope, it increases the competitiveness of the rail services between Lisbon and the south region (Alentejo and Algarve) by cutting the current times by around 30 minutes, as well as having more services available.

It cuts the time of the Lisbon-Barreiro route by 10 minutes and the Lisbon-Setúbal trip by 30 minutes. It also enables boosting the suburban rail services on offer (Circle, Sintra, and North/South Axis lines).

Lastly, it enables unrestricted rail freight traffic.

Territorial cohesion

The new crossing improves the Lisbon Metropolitan Area’s territorial cohesion, allowing the reduction in the housing pressure in the Lisbon council and becoming a factor of economic boosting of the Southern Riverside arch.

The third bridge is also essential to access the new Lisbon airport to be located in the Alcochete firing range.

The solution of having a rail line below and road on the top solves several problems. 

The rail side is complementary to the existing crosses (25 de Abril and Vasco da Gama bridges) whose level of service and reliability are decreasing.

It also strengthens direct accessibility in the Lisbon-Barreiro corrido rand improves access into Lisbon in the Barreiro-Moita-Coina triangle with gains in travel time that in some cases are 50%.

The rail component is part of the Conventional Rail Network (Circle Line, Alentejo Line and access to the new Lisbon Airport), enabling high-speed connection between Lisbon and Madrid.

The next steps in this process are the completion of the studies on the third bridge’s characteristics and setting up a new management model for the three bridges over the Tagus in Lisbon, which includes building the new one.