The Cai: stop for cars and motorbikes on the passes of the Dolomites

BOLZANO. Close the Dolomite passes to traffic, give back the “patacca” of World Heritage Site to Unesco, introduce a limited number for tourists, who should also be asked for the ecological footprint: the more polluting, the more pays. These are the shocking proposals put forward by the environmental hotelier of Val Badia Michil Costa at the conference organized on Saturday in Bolzano by the Italian Alpine Club and the Order of Engineers. “Sustainable mobility in the Dolomites, today and tomorrow”, the title. And since the traffic on the mountain roads of Trentino, Alto Adige and Bellunese, in the year of the “restart”, was absolutely unsustainable (with peaks of 18,000 vehicles per day), the tones in the room were particularly heartfelt . And not only those of the host of Corvara. Costa, organizer of the Maratona dles Dolomites, a cycling race with 30,000 registration applications and 9,000 participants during which the pass roads are really closed to traffic for thirty years, has paraphrased Dante to give a sense of hell that those who love nature like him live, especially in the summer months, and then made amends for his profession. «I suffer, because I am a hotelier and it is also my fault – he said – I no longer believe in the green deal, we will only get out of this situation with radical choices. Hoteliers cannot do it, politics must do it. Why don’t the administrators of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano make a decision? ” Costa has no doubts about what they should do: «Speak clearly about the climate emergency. Return the World Heritage Site to Unesco. Attract tourists residing within a radius of 500 kilometers and no more, introduce the weekly or daily limited number, ask them for the ecological footprint, and whoever pollutes the most pays. Building a quality railway network and, obviously, closing the Dolomite passes, focusing on bicycle tourism ».

It may not be exactly the position of the CAI, but the hall has repeatedly applauded the hotelier against the tide. And it certainly did not do the same with Daniele Santucci, engineer of the Infrastructure and Mobility Department of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano. «We aim at decarbonisation through active mobility – he said – We have introduced a digital detection system, with these data we will measure the impact and conduct traffic analyzes. The goal is to halve emissions in 2030 and zero them in 2050. The local authorities concerned signed the memorandum of understanding in April, even hoteliers see the need to reduce traffic. Our project will focus on car parks in the valley, on public transport, also connecting it to the ski lifts, and on active mobility, building new cycle paths ». Words that did not satisfy the organizers: why does the Province of Bolzano not want to close the roads of the passes, at least in the “hottest” months, asked the vice president of the CAI, Claudio Sartori? “The steps cannot be closed – replied Santucci – before doing so we must give everyone a concrete alternative”.

Concrete, like the proposal by engineer Helmut Moroder, who has already “signed” the Val Venosta railway. “One day more than our tourists would be enough to reduce traffic by 20% – he said – the Province should invest in this”. And, of course, on a more widespread railway network. «A line that connects the Alpe di Siusi, Val Gardena, Alta Badia and Cortina through the Falzarego has a potential of 10 million passages. It is an important investment, but it is not a utopia. The times are ripe, we need to be more radical ».