The Mont Blanc tunnel, a major road between France and Italy, closes Monday for two months, until December 18 for long-planned maintenance work postponed after a massive landslide at the end of August in the Maurienne Valley.
Built 60 years ago and used daily by thousands of vehicles, the durability of this 11.6 km long bidirectional structure requires "significant" work, as the French concession company Autoroutes et Tunnel du Mont-Blanc (ATMB) explained to AFP in September.
Closure of the Mont-Blanc tunnel this Monday
From 🚨 🚨⛔ 8:00 a.m. on Monday, October 16, the Mont-Blanc tunnel will be closed, 7 days a week and 7 hours a day for a period of 24 weeks, in order to carry out major works under the Haute-Savoie structure. The reopening is scheduled for December 24. 🇫🇷 🇮🇹 Heavy goods vehicle traffic between France and Italy will mainly be diverted through the Fréjus tunnel in Savoie. Light vehicles will also be able to use the Fréjus tunnel, or pass through the Swiss Great St. Bernard tunnel and the Alpine passes. Information to be shared as much as possible 😁
Posted by Highway INFO - 107.7 on Thursday, October 12, 2023
"To allow these renovation works to be carried out, traffic will be completely interrupted under the Mont Blanc tunnel from Monday 16 October at 8 a.m. The tunnel is scheduled to reopen on Monday, December 18, 2023 at 22 p.m.," Bison futé said in a statement.
Over a period of nine weeks, the work will involve the replacement of slab elements in the central portion of the tunnel and the replacement of fans on the vault, the manager of the GEIE-TMB structure had explained on 27 September. This work will precede a "test renovation of the vault (...) postponed to 2024," according to the same source.
"Around 90% of the heavy goods vehicles will be headed" towards the Fréjus tunnel
Fifteen weeks of closure for maintenance work had originally been planned from the beginning of September, but the schedule changed after a spectacular landslide that caused the closure of the railway, the motorway and the Fréjus tunnel on August 27, in the Maurienne valley, another of the major routes between France and Italy.
The postponement of road traffic at the end of the summer had led to huge traffic jams for several days at the Mont Blanc tunnel, which normally carries around 1,700 heavy goods vehicles and 3,600 light vehicles per day. According to the GEIE-TMB, "around 90% of heavy goods vehicles will be headed" towards the Fréjus tunnel due to the maintenance work.
Although road traffic has resumed in the Maurienne Valley, rail traffic will not be restored "for a year", according to a timetable mentioned by the prefect of Savoie François Ravier in front of the local press on 29 September. Replacement buses will replace trains during the period.
Monday's lengthy closure is a first for the Mont Blanc tunnel since it reopened in 2002 after a fire ravaged it on March 24, 1999, killing 39 people. The operators, who are also carrying out renovation work on part of the slab, had so far always managed to stick to night closures, except for a three-week period in autumn 2022.