For the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina there is a list of works to be done, but the agency that will have to create them must still be developed, with its own statute and its own assets. And above all with its commissioner who speeds up the authorization and bureaucratic times.
This is the state of the art of the infrastructures owned by Anas that must be built or redeveloped in Lombardy and Veneto in view of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina: a list of 16 necessary and essential works (plus 6 related works of difficult realization, which could be started in the following years, included in the dossier to complete the list of wishes for each territory).
To do this, an ad hoc agency was created on paper last summer, but the structure has not yet been defined. The name of his commissioner is taken for granted by everyone, and it is that of Luigi Valerio Sant’Andrea, former commissioner for the 2021 World Ski Championships. But the wait is longer than expected.
Anas has drawn up its list of works in the meantime, first of all taking those that have been waiting for many years, some of which have already started or with a project already defined. As for Lombardy, which should have 13 completed infrastructures, the situation seems to be better at the moment than that of Veneto, where the Cortina and Longarone variants risk not arriving in time if considered ordinary times. In fact, today we are at the final project but the tender has yet to be announced and the dialogue phase with local authorities and the Ministry of the Environment has yet to be launched. According to the time schedule, it is essential that the two roads are awarded by June 2022, otherwise the failure to finish for the 2026 Winter Games is almost obvious.
Let’s recap the situation in Lombardy. The money already allocated is a total of 630 million, divided equally between the two territories: half go to Lombardy and half to Veneto. The difference is that while the Venetian need is concentrated on a few but crucial roads (as mentioned the variant of Cortina and that of the Longarone), in Lombardy the interventions will be many and fragmented, and should serve to improve long-term viability.