Yesterday, at a conference on “Territory and Urban Mobility”, organised by the Orders of Engineers and Architects and ACIF, engineer Paula Teles argued that “Madeira needs to think quickly about connecting the city centre of Funchal to the main urban areas with shuttles or the Metro”. The news was highlighted by RTP-Madeira on Facebook and sparked a debate on the subject, with dozens of comments on the viability of these and other solutions. Former CMF councillor Edgar Marques Silva (‘Mudança’ coalition) warned that “these experts from outside come here with suggestions that have been discussed for over 20 years”. Is that really the case?
We will focus on fact-checking on the proposal that Paula Teles made for the creation of a “surface metro” line between the center of Funchal and the main population centers in its surroundings, a solution that could solve the problem of the “queues of cars” that form “every day”.
In March 1996, in a statement to DIÁRIO, the then councillor for Urban Planning at the CMF, Ricardo Silva, considered the possibility of building a surface metro line that would follow the route of the riverbanks, on a structure built above them. The idea was already foreseen in the Municipal Master Plan (PDM) and the municipal executive, which was chaired by Miguel Albuquerque, was studying an application for the investment to receive European funds from the 3rd Community Support Framework. “The Municipal Master Plan refers to the need to create alternative transport, such as funiculars or surface metro, and the only free spaces in the city for such transport are the São João, João Gomes and Santa Luzia riverbanks”, explained the mayor, who made the implementation of the project dependent on the outcome of negotiations with the Government. Apparently, these talks did not come to a ‘good end’, as the idea did not go ahead.
In May 2000, this same idea was revived by a group of socialists at a Regional Convention of PS Mayors. A movement led by Victor Freitas, which also included Agostinho Soares, Miguel Fonseca and Manuel Faia, launched the proposal to create a Metropolitan Council, which would cover the areas of Funchal, Santa Cruz, Machico and Câmara de Lobos. And one of the related suggestions was to carry out “a study on the feasibility of a surface metro in the capital of Madeira, which would be implemented along the radial riverbanks and the Estrada Monumental”.
In the context of the 2001 local elections, the PS and CDS, then led by José António Cardoso and José Manuel Rodrigues, agreed to run jointly for the Funchal City Council. On 21 August, the City Day, the respective coalition announced its main proposal to “seek to solve the serious problem of car traffic”: a surface metro, connecting various points in the city of Funchal, associated with the closure of several roads. The PS and CDS candidacy stated that it had preliminary studies for the installation of a metro identical to the one that was being installed in the city of Porto at the time. The idea involved connecting the flat areas of the city, namely the Avenida do Mar-Mercado dos Lavradores-Avenida Arriaga route and the Campo da Barca-end of Rua da Carreira route. It was considered essential to connect the hotel area and Nazaré, where the largest population cluster in the city was located. Basically, the proposal by socialists and the people involved translated into a new philosophy of traffic and parking below Cota 40, where alternative means of transport would be the central solution.
This proposal was criticized from various quarters. The President of the Regional Government, Alberto João Jardim, described it as a “surrealist proposal” and the CDU as a “megalomaniac’s daydream”. On 24 August 2001, Miguel Albuquerque stated that the surface metro “is not a solution for the city of Funchal” due to the high investment that would be required. At the time, he revealed that the CMF itself had already carried out a preliminary study on the costs and expected number of users of a metro service between Praia Formosa and the city centre. It would require spending six million contos (equivalent to around 30 million euros) and would have a low number of users, which would result in a “financial disaster”. As a result, his executive abandoned the project.
In the elections held on 16 December 2001, the PSD won the Funchal Council with 6 councillors, while the PS/CDS coalition only elected three, which did not have the conditions to implement its mobility plan.
After the intense debate in the 2001 local elections, the idea of a metro was put aside and only sporadically raised as a possibility. For example, in March 2011, as part of a debate on mobility, the regional spokesperson for Quercus advocated the evaluation of this alternative means of collective urban transport. Hélder Spínola recalled the example of Barcelona (a metro that runs on wheels and runs on batteries, instead of on rails), which is a hybrid solution that does not require electrified circuits. In 2021, the PTP candidate for the Funchal City Council, Raquel Coelho, advocated a study on the feasibility of a surface metro.
In short, it is true that for more than two decades there has been talk of the possibility of creating a metro line in the city of Funchal.