As of: February 8, 2024, 4:20 p.m
By: Johannes Welte
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Another rockfall is fueling concerns about the spectacular cycle path on Lake Garda.
© Flavia Depentori/Facebook
Another avalanche of stones thundered onto a street in Trentino.
No one was injured, but citizens are wondering: How safe is the new Lake Garda shore cycle path?
Trento/Limone – A series of rock and mountain falls in the Italian Alps has been causing a stir for months.
It was only in January that a rockslide fell on the Gardesana Street on the west bank, and there had already been a large rockfall there in December. In nearby Valsugana, a week ago, roads, rails and a cycle path were hit by falling rocks.
The Brenner motorway was also recently hit by rocks.
Mass of stones thunder onto the four-lane road to Lake Garda
Now there was another rock avalanche on the Garadesana road, this time right at its beginning near Trento.
Here the road, which is the shortest connection to Lake Garda from Brenner, has been expanded to four lanes.
It leads through a tunnel from the Adige Valley into the high valley of the Sarca River, which ends in Riva.
There the Gardesana divides into its two branches on the west and east banks.
At the beginning of Gardesana Street, an avalanche of stones fell onto the road.
© Province of Trento
The landslide occurred around 4 a.m. in the direction of Trento, shortly after the tunnel, when there were still few commuters on the road.
In a rock face above the road, the stones had become loose and fell onto the road, although there was a safety fence there to prevent this.
Apparently there was no damage, but the road had to be closed before rush hour.
All vehicles were rerouted over a wide area - the result was chaos in the Trent rush hour in the morning.
By evening traffic, the road had been cleared and the rocky slope had been secured.
Italy's most famous cycle path is in the risk zone
But the issue of rock falls and safety is not yet settled for everyone.
Flavia Depentori, a music teacher from Arco near Riva, is concerned about the safety of pedestrians and cyclists who travel on the Lake Garda cycle path near Limone, which opened in 2018 and is planned to be expanded to Riva.
The cycle path is spectacularly screwed onto stilts that were driven directly into the rock.
The “Ciclopista del Garda” has developed into a tourist magnet.
But in pictures you can see that the rock walls rise directly above the hikers and cyclists, safety nets are intended to prevent stones from falling onto the bike path.
They hadn't done that in Trent.
Larger rocks cannot stop the safety nets anyway.
“I can only be amazed when I see this bike path.
If you lift your head, you can see the masses of rock hanging there.
The only question is: How long will they stay up there?
The next rockfall is only a matter of time,” writes Depentori in her post.
And then she asks herself: “We are providing millions and millions in the name of tourism to continue building the route to Riva del Garda.
But what if a tourist or a local gets left behind??!!”
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Critic says: A rockfall on the bike path is only a matter of time
The environmental protection committee Gaia di Gavardo had already said after the last major rock fall in the immediate vicinity of the cycle path at Limone opposite the
Corriere de la Sera
: “Tonight a near-tragedy occurred.
How much longer must we tolerate the will of bureaucrats and politicians who want to tempt fate by continuing to think only that nature must bend to our arrogant will?”
When a reporter from the
Rai 3
channel recently asked provincial president Maurizio Fugatti (of the right-wing Lega) about this issue, he declined to comment.
It is already feared that the cost of completing the cycle path will explode from 340 to 900 million euros.
Depentori writes: “It is not for nothing that Gardesana Street runs in a continuous tunnel in this section.”