Roads, viaducts and tunnels under the Dolomites: the new construction sites for the Olympic Games

Is it possible to organize an event like an Olympics that doesn’t have a negative impact on the environment? This is what various environmental associations continue to ask themselves in front of the works that are gradually being implemented in view of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. The fourth ever to be hosted by Italy. Some projects, especially those involving road infrastructures, raise many perplexities. Not only for the fragile setting of the Alps, but also for the visual impact they will have on the landscape in almost all of the territories that the new roads will cross. The Dolomites indeed, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Several doubts have been advanced by Legambiente which has drawn up a report on the Games in the context of “Snowversa” the Legambiente dossier which tells the story of the ecological transition in mountain areas every year. Yet, both environmental and economic sustainability in the 2026 sporting event are central, given that the Italian candidacy was successful precisely because it had, among other things, ensured “the maximum reuse of around 90% of the existing infrastructures”.

The goal of the International Olympic Committee was in fact to avoid invasive and costly construction sites. But now the problem ofcost increase, due in part to the increase in the price of materials, have become the focus of discussions between citizens, public bodies and the Milano-Cortina Foundation. Between those who ask to spend the money in other ways for the communities that live in the mountains and those who instead argue that the construction of infrastructures will be essential for revitalizing the villages.

Milan-Cortina 2026

Livinallongo, the town that doesn’t want the Cortina-Arabba ski area

by Fiammetta Cupellaro

January 18, 2023

Thus the Foundation and Coni, after having said “yes” to the renovation of the expensive and contested bobsled track in the Ampezzo capital which will cost more than 100 million euros and said “no” to the new speed skating rink which should have been built in Baselga di Pine in Trentino called “Ice rink oval” (a facility for 6,000 spectators in a town that has 5,000 residents), has launched tenders for the construction of motorway links, ring roads, tunnels, viaducts, bridges planned for speed up travel between one location and another to watch the races. both in Veneto, both in Lombardythe two regions which, together with the Provinces of Trento and Bolzano, will host the Winter Games spread over an area of ​​over 22,000 square metres.

2023 in Veneto is the year of construction sites

At the end of December, the Cipess (Interministerial Committee for Economic Planning and Sustainable Development) approved 4.55 billion euros for investments in the Anas program contract, making the funds allocated by the 2022 budget law available. financed in view of the Olympics can start: the new ring roads along the Alemagna state road. Expected five, there will probably be only three.

One of the problems for Cortina, the governor of Veneto has always underlined Luca Zaia will be to manage an anomalous flow of people and create “a road network capable of welcoming teams, athletes, sportsmen and tourists coming from the plain by road”, fromA27 (Venice-Belluno), “and which will remain a legacy after the Games, facilitating and making access to our mountains safer”. For this purpose, they have been foreseen by the engineer Luigi Valerio Sant’AndreaGovernment Commissioner and CEO of the Milano Cortina Infrastructure Company 2020-2026 and designed by Anas, four variants along the state road 51 – in Longarone, in Tai and in Valle di Cadore, in San Vito – plus the one envisaged in cortina d’Ampezzo, a 4 km long tunnel. Ring roads designed to solve traffic bottlenecks for motorists who will exit the motorway tollbooth. From February 2026, just off the A27 you will find signs for a ring road to Cortina. The first variant is that of Longarone, the village of the Vajont dam rebuilt on the left bank of the Piave river. The new road will be built to the right of the river.

Longarone: along the Piave

Considered by Zaia the “central node of the Olympic infrastructure in Veneto”, the variant of Longarone which will start from the motorway exit has been included in that list of works already financed and which will be carried out by Anas. 11 kilometers long, its initial value was 280 million euros, already allocated, but which due to the energy crisis, has risen to 396 million. The Services Conference will examine the executive project, then the tenders will be called. However, there are those who consider this construction site a race against time. The new road, which from Pian di Vedoia will descend towards the Piave, will run largely along the right bank of the river and therefore close to the riverbed. The first intervention will in fact be the deshing of the Piave to recover more margins for the new roadway.

The degraveling operation will be financed with the funds allocated by theVaia emergency and the materials will be recycled. But will it be possible to build these 11 kilometers in time for the opening ceremony of the Olympics? Roberto Padrin who holds two offices, president of the province of Belluno and also that of mayor of Longarone is a major sponsor of the new ring road, but fears that times may be tight. Not because of the funding, but because of the delays: “Let’s hope that at least part of it is ready for the Olympic event,” he said in December on hearing of the release of funding. The first 3 kilometers are expected. Perhaps.

Tai di Cadore, the Anas: three years of construction

On this journey into the future, having left the motorway and traveled the 11 kilometers of the Longarone ring road, we are still on the State Germany which, after Cortina (which is about 60 kilometers away) leads to Dobbiaco, in Alto Adige. A two-lane road that passes through small towns scattered along the Boite Valley. The first we meet is Tai di Cadore with its 1,500 inhabitants. Here the Veneto Region has planned the construction of a tunnel of over 980 meters and two new roundabouts that will connect the tunnel. The total investment is 72.4 million euros. A complex process that also includes the demolition of old mountain buildings and expropriations. The duration of the contract, according to Anas, is 1,014 days. Three years. Cortina da Tai is about thirty kilometers away.

Valle di Cadore: the demolitions have started

No time is wasted here. The tender process has not yet been completed, but the mayor of Cadore Valley, Marianna Hofer has already started demolitions to make way for the road to the Olympic Games. The first building to fall under the blows of the bulldozers in recent days was the “house of the butcher” guilty of being placed against a curve on the Alemagna state road. A town of 1,800 inhabitants where the profile of Mount Pelmo can already be glimpsed, in two days in Valle di Cadore they demolished an entire building, Palazzo Costantini, to expand the state road.

Then the same fate will befall a house close to the Town Hall: it will be demolished to make room for the roundabout that will lead to the entrance to the future gallery which will be 600 meters long. An investment of 52.6 million euros. Trees are already being cut down to prepare the construction site area both at the tunnel entrance junction and at the exit towards Cortina which is 21 kilometers away. Indeed, towards Cortina the trees are already gone. He’s just waiting for the construction site to open. It is all ready.

San Vito di Cadore: bridge, tunnel and roundabouts

The village closest to Cortina, San Vito di Cadore it has always been considered a sort of fraction of the Ampezzo capital from which it is just 10 kilometers away. Surrounded by the peaks of Antelao, Pelmo and Marmorale, many ski enthusiasts stay in the hotels of San Vito, to then go skiing on the slopes of the Cortina area. Car traffic on the Alemagna state road between the two towns during the weekends is always heavy. Considered the access road to the center of Cortina, the construction of a long ring road is planned here to keep out the center of the town. 2.3 kilometers long, it will be built parallel to the inhabited center and will join the Alemagna state road with two roundabouts both to be built. The works already financed by the Veneto Region for 64.8 million eurosalso provide for the construction of a bridge, a viaduct and 4 tunnels. We are at the gates of Cortina.