The Mont-Blanc Tunnel will be closed from next week until the middle of December. The closure is to allows for major renovation – there will be further closures next year.
The company says it has deliberately chosen this time of year as tunnel usage is the lowest.
The autoroute heading to the tunnel will also be closed to allow for work to be carried out. The tunnel carries 5,000 cars a day at peak times and was first opened in 1959. This will exacerbate freight movements into Italy following the derailment in the Gotthard base tunnel.
5000 cars a day is minuscule. Gotthard street tunnel has in average 17’000 per day and in peak times up to 24’000. Mont-Blanc tunnel is also not a major fright route. And going through Gd. St. Bernhard ( LSVA + Tunnel fee ) costs about the same as Mt. Blanc fee
A 57 km tunnel for trains linking Lyon and Torino has been under construction for several years. Expected operation date is by 2032. This tunnel is similar to Gotthard base tunnel and should decrease truck traffic significantly on this route.
Lots of people have opposed the project since long time ago. I’m curious to see what the opposition to the tunnel construction says next week because the Frejus railway was also disrupted by the landslide.
From TUNNEL DU MONT-BLANC - GEIE, the tunnel operator:
In order to allow technical maintenance work to be carried out on the tunnel, the Mont Blanc Tunnel will be totally closed for a period of 9 consecutive weeks, starting on Monday 16 October, 8 a.m.
Re-opening to traffic is planned by Monday 18 December 2023, 10 p.m.
The Mont-Blanc Tunnel reopens later today after being closed for several weeks for renovation.
It’s been closed since October.
Engineers say final safety checks are being made today, but it’s due to open at 4pm.
The road surface has been changed and all the 76 fans have been replaced with more powerful versions.
There will be another closure for five hours on Monday, but that’s due to an annual exercise which checks the readiness of French and Italian emergency workers. That will be from 5 to 10pm. A couple of days early!
Such an efficiency in not common for neither of those countries... but it makes sense actually, it doesn't come out of blue.
Every single truck pays 400+ euros for a single ride (got this info from truck driver doing this frequently), cars have their prices which are lower but still significant. Tunnel easily generates few millions of euros of net income every day, a very motivating factor for both indebted countries to actually perform.