St. Bernard Tunnel ALL-WEATHER ROAD OPENS NEW ALPINE MOTORING ERA

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30405, 2 April 1964, Page 12

St. Bernard Tunnel ALL-WEATHER ROAD OPENS NEW ALPINE MOTORING ERA

IKeprinted from the "Finonctot Timet,”

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The public opening of the road tunnel under the 8,100-foot Great St. Bernard Pass (it had already been used to move a 14-year-old gn l needing urgent treatment to a doctor in Berne) marks the opening of a new era in Trans-Alpine—Sub-Alpine —motoring. The tunnel is the first of several that will make it possible for vehicles to cross the 400-mile mountain barrier between Switzerland, France and Italy at any tune of the year, almost regardless of the weather. By contrast, the existing mountain roads are generally only open for about four to live months a year. At other times, drivers have nad to use the car-carrier services through the railway tunnels, often at the cost of making considerable detours—an extra 50 miles in the case of the Great St. Bernard.

The inadequacies of the surface routes between SouthWestern and Central Switzerland and Northern Italy, the inconvenience to tourists and business men, the extra costs imposed on goods transport, have all long been obvious, so much so that a tunnel was projected as far back as the nineteenth century (and even the present plans go back to 1936). However, the size of the engineering problems that had to be resolved, and most of all the sheer cost—it now seems this will be about £lsm —continued to hold up progress. In the event, little happened until the signing of an Italian-Swiss convention late in 1957, and even then several months elapsed before the tunnellers—mixed consortia of Swiss and Italian public authorities and private interests, which includes a 25 per cent participation by Fiat—could begin work. Road and Pipeline

The 14 kilometres of approach roads pass through magnificent wild scenery and finally enter the mountainside at an altitude of over 5000 feet, at Bourg St. Michel, near Martigny (Switzerland), and St. Rhemy, above Aosta (Italy). Between these two points runs the 6.8-kilometre-iong tunnel, which is big enough to accommodate both a 24ft-wide roadway and an oil pipeline initially serving the new refinery at Aigle, near Lake Geneva. Initially, its capacity will be limited, as certain terminal works have not been completed. However, the tunnel should even-

tually be able to take a peak load of as much as 500 cars an hour—hence the need for the elaborate automatic ventilating system that has been installed.

Once the tunnel is in full operation, holidaymakers are unlikely to be troubled too much by delays. It should be able to cope with any reasonable volume of traffic even at most peak periods, assuming that the forecasters are right in suggesting that it will be used by about 300,000 vehicles a year. In any case, many summer motorists may well prefer to continue to drive over the Pass in sunshine, rather than paying tolls of up to £1 12s for the privilege of going through the tunnel in convoy—no overtaking is allowed. And in a year’s time some people at least may find it more convenient to use the rival Mont Blanc Tunnel, only 20-25 kilometres to the west. Mont Blanc

The driving of the Mont Blanc road tunnel—at nearly 12 kilometres, it will displace the Great St. Bernard as Europe’s longest—has probably given rise to even greater engineering problems than its rival. The tunnel has been bored in very difficult geological conditions, especially along its southern part: rotten stone, floods and falls of rock so held up operations that it took the Italian contractors five months to excavate one 240-metre section. More recently, further delays are understood to have been experi-

enced, this time on the French side, in connexion with ventilation problems. All this has of course put back the completion of the tunnel, which is now to open in the summer of 1965, three years later than had previously been expected. It has also added materially to its cost, initially estimated at £6)m, and now certainly more than twice that amount. The Mont Blanc tunnel has been financed by two companies, one French, the other Italian, the capital coming from local and central government sources in each country. Swiss interests, including the Municipality and Canton of Geneva, also have a small stake in the project. Tolls arc to be levied by the operating company for 70 years, after which the tunnel will become the joint property of the French and Italian governments. No specific charges have yet been announced, but it seems that cars will pay nearly £2 5s to pass through. This is more than on the Great St. Bernard, and the hinterland of both tunnels overlaps to some extent.

However, the Mont Blanc’s advocates point out that their tunnel will provide the quickest all-season road between the Paris region and Italy, for instance shortening the distance between Paris and Milan by 63 km., compared with the Great St. Bernard route. This perhaps provides part of the basis for the forecasts suggesting that it will be used by upwards of 300,000 cars, buses and trucks a year—a considerable figure, bearing in mind the seasonal

nature of the traffic, and the fact that the 24 foot tunnel has a maximum capacity of 450 vehicles an hour. San Bernardino Apart from the Great St. Bernard and the Mont Blanc, construction has begun on only one other major Alpine road tunnel, the 6j km. San Bernardino, which will connect the Swiss cantons of Tessin and Graubunden. Work began two years ago, and it seems that the tunnel might be opened as early as 1966. Its main functions will be to provide an all-weather road between Bavaria and the Milan area and to relieve pressure on the St. Gotthard. Various projects have in fact been submitted to the Swiss Federal Council for the construction of a road tunnel under the St. Gotthard itself. However, no action is likely to be taken on these for the time being, in view of the Swiss Government's decisidn to hold down the tempo of new construction work as part of its disinflationary policy. Furthermore, even if approval is ultimately given, the sheer magnitude of the undertaking (a four-lane 16km. tunnel costing some £6sm, a new record for Europe) would certainly hold back its completion until at least the early 1970'5. Six Other Tunnels Proposals have been put forward for at least six other major Alpine road tunnels, but the majority are still only at the early stages of discussion. Perhaps the most important of these is the project by a mixed consortium (including both Fiat and Michelin) for the building of the 12 km Frejus tunnel under the Mont Cents massif. It is pointed out that this tunnel would have the advantage of being able to tap a fair amount of all-the-year-round goods traffic moving between Central France and Northern Italy. However, it would also share an important part of its hinterland—the Lyons area—-with the Mont Blanc tunnel, and in addition would certainly face keen competition from the Mont Cenis railway tunnel. However, the future development of the Frejus and of some of the other tunnel projects that are now being canvassed is unlikely to be decided at the moment: the authorities concerned are much more likely to hold their hand and see from the experience of the Great St Bernard just how profitable Alpine tunnelling really is—and here the real test only comes next year, with the opening of the Mont Blanc.

Foreign car sales in the United States are. increasing again.