Mont Blanc tunnel to reopen amid traffic, safety questions

The opening of the Mont Blanc tunnel will relieve the immense burden on Swiss roads Keystone

The reopening of France's Mont Blanc tunnel in just under four weeks does little to answer urgent questions about trans-alpine road transport.

The French and Italian governments announced on Tuesday that the tunnel, which has been closed since 39 people died in a fire in March 1999, would reopen to passenger vehicles on December 22, a week later than initially planned, once delayed security tests had been completed.

A decision on allowing trucks to use the tunnel will be taken on December 19, with a view to a resumption of heavy goods traffic before the end of January 2002.

Last month, another single-bore tunnel, the Gotthard in Switzerland was closed as a result of a head-on collision and fire in which 11 people perished.

The accident meant that two of the five north-south trans-alpine road tunnels were closed, causing a massive increase in the volume of traffic passing through the remaining three: Fréjus, between France and Italy, the San Bernadino in Switzerland and the Brenner in Austria.

The reopening of the Mont Blanc tunnel will relieve the immense burden on the Fréjus route. There is expected to be a slight reduction in the volume of traffic on Swiss roads.

Europe-wide strategy

But in the longer term, a more coherent cross-border transport strategy is required to ease the pressure on mountain routes.

“The reopening of the Mont Blanc tunnel will not be the end of the traffic problems in Europe,” says Michael Gehrken of the Swiss Federal Roads Authority.

“There has to be a solution at European level,” he told swissinfo.

That kind of international transport strategy may begin to emerge on Friday, when a number of European transport ministers, including Swiss President Moritz Leuenberger, meet to discuss trans-alpine traffic.

“There’s a growing consensus that the long-term strategy needs to be essentially rail-based,” says Guy Willis, spokesman of the Geneva-based International Road Transport Union.

“But it will take a long time to put in place the necessary infrastructure and we will continue to rely predominantly on road transport for some time to come,” he explained.

Indeed, another decision approved by the French and Italian governments during their summit in Perigueux was to put in place a new high-speed rail link between Lyons and Turin by 2012, instead of 2015. That compared with the 2013 deadline for the new Swiss trans-alpine rail link.

“We have to get freight onto the railways. The infrastructure exists, but it can’t be used because different countries have different standards,” Gehrken says.

Safety measures

Even once the rail infrastructure is in place, the roads will continue to bear a considerable amount of the freight burden, giving even more reason to ensure that adequate safety measures are in place.

The French authorities said they would not reopen the Mont Blanc tunnel without the “optimum security conditions”. One safety measure suggested was to implement a system of alternate traffic, whereby vehicles would pass through the tunnel in only one direction, while traffic travelling the other way would have to use the Fréjus tunnel.

This proposal has met with disapproval from mountain communities and the road haulage industry, both of which believe the scheme will lead to massive tailbacks at the tunnels.

“At least they’ve taken into account the point that you can’t have major axes that have traffic going in both directions in a single tube,” Guy Willis told swissinfo. “But the alternate traffic option seems to present as many problems as solutions.”

“The safety measures are sufficient under the circumstances. But they need to ensure that they’re enforced. It’s not enough that they simply exist,” he added.

by Roy Probert