“It is very important because it will provide much safer access and serve as a significant response to the residents of Garraia and the municipality,” Évora Mayor Carlos Zorrinho (PS) told the Lusa news agency.

The mayor emphasised that the project was agreed upon during meetings between IP, the municipality, and the Garraia Residents’ Association (AMG), and he welcomed the progress: “We have the funding and the project is approved; now it is a matter of launching the contract and getting the work done,” he noted.

The government order authorising IP to assume the budgetary costs for this project was published last Friday in the Diário da República (the official gazette).

According to the order, signed by the Secretary of State for Infrastructure, Hugo Espírito Santo, the project involves an investment of €2.2 million. It will be executed over multiple years, spanning 2027 and 2028.

The costs are split between 2027 (€864,285.74) and 2028 (€1,335,714.26), according to the document Lusa consulted.

Also speaking to Lusa, AMG president Pedro Pessoa expressed satisfaction with the government’s authorisation, calling it “another step in the saga of correcting the error at that EN18 junction over the railway in Garraia.” The viaduct will be built “as an extension of Municipal Road (CM) 1090, passing over the railway, and will connect to the EN18 at a straight section that is safer than the current layout,” the association’s representative said.

Residents of Garraia object to what they consider “gross errors” in the design of the Évora–Évora Norte railway section—specifically the junction, located “on a curve with a very steep gradient,” that connects CM1090 (which serves the locality) to the EN18.