Transportation
The New France-Italy High-Speed Rail Plan Has a Lot of Haters
The link will slash journey times, but many locals loathe it with a passion.
After 15 years of wrangling, a new high-speed rail line from France to Italy was at last confirmed to be on its way this week.
Following an agreement on costs signed yesterday, a new TGV link will join France’s second city of Lyon with Turin, Italy, via a new 57-kilometer (35-mile) tunnel burrowed underneath some of Europe’s highest mountains. When the line is ready in 2028, it will slash journey times between the cities and provide a greatly improved, less polluting transalpine freight corridor. Joining up to France’s existing high-speed network, it should also allow passengers to reach Paris from Milan in a mere four hours.