Gardesana Occidentale Closure and Safety Upgrade Demands

Starting tomorrow, the Gardesana Occidentale will be closed for finishing works on the new tunnel built this spring between Riva and Limone. The main route will only reopen to traffic on December 15. This was announced by the Provincia autonoma di Trento, which has granted a temporary one-way traffic regulation only for tomorrow between 10 a.m. and midnight.

The new tunnel became necessary after the landslide at Sperone at the end of 1999. That stretch of road along the lake was deemed too dangerous to ignore the possibility of over a kilometer-long tunnel. It was constructed in record time and opened in July in the presence of the head of state, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. The completion works are expected to last about a month.

Concerns and Requests for Road Improvements

It is also important to note that the mayors of the Communes on the Brescia shore, concerned about the safety of the Lombard section of the Gardesana, are pressing for a radical restructuring of the state road south of Limone. The president of the Mountain Community of Alto Garda, Bruno Faustini, on behalf of the coastal administration officials, wrote in recent days to the Minister of Public Works, Pietro Lunardi, urging his prompt involvement.

The requests, emerging from a meeting held in recent days in Limone, focus on a decisive intervention to address issues in the sections between Limone and Gargnano and between Salò and Toscolano, which were affected by several landslides in past years. To achieve significant results, the mayors of Benaco and the public works assessor of the Provincia di Brescia, Mauro Parolini, believe that interventions costing at least 300 billion lire are necessary.