Thursday,
July 12, 2007
Major Plan Unveiled- 27 Italy-Europe Hi
Speed Rail Links, Next
The
ANNOTICO Report
I
have already Reported (June 16) where
Now,
Also
proposed is a rail link from
Italian
infrastructure minister Antonio Di Pietro speaking at a Conference revealed his
list for EU funding that includes 4
international projects as well as 23 national projects
which qualify because they support crossborder
links.
Interestingly,
a rail link from
These
new rail links are HIGH SPEED, and therefore will supplant/supplement previous
rail links/tunnels that can support only slower trains, that labor over
great elevation changes, and navigate challenging curves.
It
is encouraging to see such aggressive planning on the part of
Forbes
Magazine
From
Thomson Financial
July
12, 2007
ROME
- Italian infrastructure minister Antonio Di Pietro said a planned high-speed
railway link between Turin and Lyon is one of a series of crossborder
rail projects for which he plans to seek EU funding.
The high-speed
rail link between
'Next Wednesday I
have a meeting with EU transport commissioner Jacques Barot
when I will file a series of rail projects for EU funding, and not just the new
Brenner Pass link,' Di Pietro said.
Earlier this
week, Di Pietro agreed with Austrian authorities on the launch of a new crossborder link via the Brenner Pass to
Confirming the
inclusion of the Turin-Lyon link in the EU project list, Di Pietro said the
route for the railway link has yet to be finalised.
The list of
projects also includes a rail link with
Speaking at an
infrastructure conference, Di Pietro said
In further
details, infrastructure ministry officials said its list for EU funding
includes 4 international projects as well as 23 national projects which qualify
because they support crossborder links.
The 4
international projects are the Turin-Lyons link, a high-speed rail tunnel under
the Brenner Pass, a rail link from
The request for
EU funding amounts to 1.2 bln eur
for the international projects and 2.4 bln for the
national ones, they said, adding the overall investment for the 27 projects is
seen at 11 bln.
These requests
for EU co-funding compare to the 8 bln eur available in EU coffers for international projects and
a similar sum for national ones, all of which must be spread across all 27
member states.
On the Brenner
Tunnel, the officials said the EU's crossborder infrastructure czar Karel
Van Miert said this is a very good project and should
get the maximum 30 pct EU funding of about 1 bln eur, half to
Exploratory
tunnels for the Brenner link have started but the full works are only scheduled
to begin in 2010, they said.
This rail tunnel
is likely to be considerably longer than the present fairly short road tunnel
at Brenner because high-speed trains cannot climb very steep hills, they said.
The
ANNOTICO Reports Can be Viewed (and are Archived) on:
Italia
Italia
Mia: http://www.ItaliaMia.com (3 years)
Annotico
Email: annotico@earthlink.net