Trento Meeting Sets Technical Review for Gardesana Road Safety
The major meeting convened in Trento in the Province to discuss the future of the Gardesana Occidentale concluded last night with a reconciliatory agreement, capable at least of freezing the situation and postponing the final decision for a few weeks.
One might wonder if such a postponement truly required such an imposing gathering of personalities. Present were President Dellai and his colleague Cavalli, President of the Province of Brescia, the relevant assessors Casagranda and Grisenti, as well as others from the area, Molinari and Benedetti; there were mayors Riva Malossini and Limone Martinelli, with their deputies; and the provincial technical team, starting with engineer Bortolotti.
The engineers’ position and subsequent steps
Among the influential figures present for consultation, weighing heavily like a boulder, was engineer Castelli’s expert opinion declaring the entire first stretch of the road, from the gates of Riva to the Sperone valley, as indefensible; and the long shadow cast by the latest landslide, which occurred just outside the first tunnel, far earlier than normal timber. This was attributed to the strange winter, which alternates chills of frost with springlike warmth, capricious as if March had already arrived.
The story is well known: after the landslide, engineer Bortolotti stated that the minimum safety conditions to ensure vehicular transit no longer existed: the road was closed, prompting a rapid start on constructing the tunnel intended to save both the driver (the skin of those passing) and the local economy of Limone, which is linked to Trentino solely by that road—almost as if it were a lifeline.
The rebellion of the Lombards is complete and resolute: inevitable. They see a future of desolation and emptiness: themselves, with kitchens and restaurants closed, condemned to loiter along the lakeside, staring at their toes; meanwhile, promissory notes mature and banks consume the walls built in years of honest toil.
Technical interventions and decisions
Salomone ultimately came to the rescue. This is not a political issue but something entirely technical: science, solely science. Chemistry: the rain that becomes acid, corroding limestone; physics: water that freezes, swells, defrosts, and slips away; physics again: masses that, when unrestrained, collapse under gravity and fall.
Therefore, it’s a matter for experts. Two, representing the two sides involved. The Trentino could be engineer Castelli, who has already researched the matter. Alongside him, within seven days, the Brescia president, architect Cavalli, will appoint a geologist from their side to examine, touch, consider, and propose any possible solutions.
Within weeks, these two should be able to deliver their technical opinion to the politicians to ground the final decision. Meanwhile, regardless of the road’s fate, a four-billion-lira operation to detach the walls of La Rocchetta will commence.
This intervention was already decided and planned before the landslide, deemed necessary in any case: not just to secure the safety of workers who, in 2002, will be tunneling through the mountain toward the Sperone valley.
Mayor Martinelli clings to the thread of hope remaining. Perhaps, within the depths of the expert report, a provisional solution might emerge—such as a temporary one-way system, something suspended like the route to Campi: enough so that the summer convoy of colored steel can continue to flow, even if limping, intermittently.
From Navigarda, Grisenti assures, more cannot be provided: and for summer, as already seen, it’s too little.