If there’s the tiniest doubt, there’s no doubt at all, as Robert De Niro said in one of his really famous films. So if there is not A SINGLE reason to create the TAV in Val di Susa. It’s not worth it economically- it will cost 22 billion compared to non-existent benefits. It’s not good for the environment – it will destroy a valley. It’s no good for commercial traffic – in continual decline in the last 10 years on the current track. SO what’s the use? Why are the prosecutors’ offices not carrying out investigations on the waste of public money? Is it acceptable that while we are in the abyss of default and Tremorti is launching a package worth 47 billion in cuts and taxes that 22 billion euro (OUR MONEY dear penny-paper hacks, not that of the EU)? This monstrous and improbable endeavour is due to finish in twenty years time. But what is it? You are taking us for a ride and do you even expect us to believe you?
Today, professor Marco Ponti, one of the few who are publicly supporting the people of the Val di Susa, explains to us why the TAV is useless. We are anxiously waiting for the voice of the totems of the country, from Mario Monti, to Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, to Mario Draghi, ever absent, ever silent.

Interview with Marco Ponti, professor at the Politecnico di Milano

Marco Ponti - I am Marco Ponti, ordinary professor in the economics of transport at Milan Polytechnic.
Blog - Is the TAV in Val di Susa necessary for transport between Italy and France? Marco Ponti -That line wouldn’t seem to be indispensable, it would certainly have a very low priority in relation to other interventions because the costs are really high and the traffic, always going with the official figures, is really low, among the lowest of all the Italian valleys through the Alps.
Blog -What are the costs and what are the benefits of this endeavour? Marco Ponti -The costs that are officially forecast are for the whole line, not just the basic tunnel. That is 22 billion euro, but usually these forecasts are lower than the real costs. The Italian high speed train cost three times the amount forecast; the benefits for passengers are significant; but in this case the forecast number of passengers is very low, the line should thus be essentially for the transport of goods, but the goods traffic right now is three million tons a year and it has been in decline in the last 10 years and this seems to have limited growth prospects, because in the future it will have competition from the new Gotthard tunnel in Switzerland that goes more or less in the same direction. It seems unlikely that the traffic will saturate the existing line that can carry up to 20 million tons without spending one euro, it’s unlikely to go over that threshold.
Blog -Why are the parties so persistent about this project that many people believe to be useless? Marco Ponti -There’s a strange story that everything to do with railways deserves a load of public money, while the road system that carries 90% of goods and passengers and even commuters, we have to remember, seems to be seen as the demon because of pollution but it doesn’t make technical sense, nor from the environmental point of view.
Blog -Is this enormous environmental impact justifiable? Marco Ponti -The environmental impact for any new construction project is pretty high, if the project is very useful then perhaps the benefits even the environmental ones can be more important than the emissions from the construction work, but in this case, given the really big doubts about the usefulness of the project, there’s also the risk that from the environmental point of view the shifting of traffic from road to rail is very low and thus the benefits in the reduction of the environmental impact are very low. They are forecasting 14 trains a day where the capacity is 250. Goods traffic on rail is in decline in the whole of Europe with very few exceptions. Even in France rail traffic is in decline because the things that we produce are not raw materials, bricks or wood or coal, those things that went by rail two centuries ago. Today we are producing Armani outfits and microchips that it’s more or less impossible to put on trains, if we want to increase the capacity of the rail system, but there’s no need. It’s much better to intervene with technologies that cost much less and can do quite a good job at dealing with any likely increases in demand, if the increases in demand happen, but up until now they have been like a flat encephalogram. I have to remember that the road system is overused in the whole of Europe, whereas the rail system is over subsidised and even still it’s the road system that wins out. Why’s that? Is it because people are stupid and wicked? No. It’s probably because there are structural reasons that explain this. We have lifestyles and types of production that no longer are in agreement with the rail system.

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