In its own way yesterday's, with the official start of the works, is destined to become a historic date in the affair of the Turin-Lyon high speed railway. What makes one wonder: how many other historical dates will there be between here and the inauguration of the line? If only because in the best case scenario the first high-speed trains between the two cities will start traveling in 2023 and experience shows that the march towards that fateful date will not be without obstacles.
It took 21 years to get to the start of the works and above all the ultimatum from Brussels which, in the absence of the opening of the construction site by 30 June – Thursday – would have revoked a large part of its funding of 671 million euros destined to the international section of the line. Continuing to prevaricate – waiting for the opposition to the project to evaporate little by little like the Eigovitto distilled in the cellars around Avanà, where demonstrators and police clashed yesterday – was no longer possible. It would have meant losing funding from Brussels and thus seeing the popularity of this controversial project eroded further.
A little out of turn one might say. Above all because, despite being hundreds of millions of euros, the amount allocated by the EU will only cover part of the costs of international trafficking, leaving the Italian state with a fabulous bill, in the most optimistic of hypotheses oscillating between 10 and 11 billion EUR. How much would be enough - wanting to remain in the ambit of the great controversial works - to build not one, but a couple of bridges in Messina.
According to a group of academics specializing in the transport sector who have tried to open a debate on the topic through the site lavoce.info, it is too high a bill. Both by virtue of the poor state of public finances and because of the non-glamorous repercussions (1 hour less travel time on a route that represents 1% of Piedmontese traffic and 0,1% of Italian traffic). All this between two countries already connected, in the same region affected by the project, by a motorway and a railway, both of which are now anything but overused.
The proponents of the project - which was supported by both centre-left and centre-right governments - instead underline how the fast rail instead of rubber will contribute to significantly lowering the levels of atmospheric pollution in Val Susa without excessively increasing noise levels due to the the decision to put 90% of the section underground and to use quieter than average trains. Arguments to which a less technical but equally seductive one has been added in recent hours: the opposition on the ground to the project is now largely composed of activists from the social centers of northern Italy who have little or nothing to do with Val Susa share and that in the affair see nothing but a new cause célèbre with which to reaffirm their antagonism with respect to the "system".
Interesting arguments proposed by both sides, but in these years of discussion on the opportunity to open a high-speed link between Turin and Lyon have not received the space they deserved. Italians suffocated by good ideological chatter just to reinforce the mutual prejudices nourished by the various parties involved. Overwhelmed by the backward, anti-modern and exquisitely nimby-taste claims of the inhabitants of the Susa Valley, by the ultra-ideological ones of the antagonists and by the hairy Europeanism of those who argue that giving up the high-speed train between Turin and Lyon means calling themselves out of Corridor 5 and from Europe, we weren't even giving up the single currency.
To know the table of records, the Chinese one, go to:
https://www.firstonline.info/a/2011/06/28/cina-tav-da-fantascienza/efe5a4d1-b9e5-4338-a7d1-88f9e4502892
