Press release from the Association for the Respect of the Mont-Blanc Site and Mont-Blanc NGOs
Following the fire in the Frejus tunnel in Savoie (south of the Mont-Blanc tunnel) on 3 June, this major truck route through the Alps will, we are told, be closed for many months. The majority of the traffic is now being directed to the Mont-Blanc tunnel and the very fragile Chamonix valley.
Consequently, air and noise pollution thresholds will undoubtedly be exceeded in the valley and accident risks will be hugely increased both in the tunnel and on its access road. It is the intensity of truck traffic that makes alpine tunnels so dangerous. In the last 6 years, all 3 major routes through the Western Alps have suffered long closures due to HGV fires: Mont-Blanc tunnel in 1999, Gotthard in 2001 and now the Frejus tunnel.
Mont-Blanc populations who have been firmly opposed to ever increasing truck traffic through the tunnel since the early 1990's, will gather on Wednesday 8 June at 17:30 on the Vigie round-about, at the foot of the Mont-Blanc access road in Chamonix, to show their anger and to demand once again a reduction in road transport through the Alps and a shift towards cleaner rail and sea alternatives.
Past and current all-out road transport policies throughout Europe have lead to recent accident patterns in Alpine tunnels. A proposed increase in road capacity would simply increase traffic, and therefore accident risks and pollution in recognised sensitive areas, without resolving the issue. Both fires in the Mont-Blanc and Frejus tunnels were caused by trucks spontaneously catching fire and not by collisions. Such risks are inherent to trucks and can only increase with higher traffic volumes.
