Italy’s Winter Olympics face transport headaches across 8,500 square miles

The 25th Winter Games, which the organizers say begin this week with an opening ceremony on Feb. 6, will be held across eight locations spanning about 8,500 square miles of northern Italy, a spread that organizers and officials have described as a logistical nightmare. Organizers pitched the diffuse model as sustainable and as a way to showcase more of Italy.

Andrea Varnier, the organizing committees chief executive, told Fleet Magazine that "movement becomes the beating heart of the organization," and Cortinas mayor, Gianluca Lorenzi, spoke of traveling by bus and train between events to see different venues. Officials have added infrastructure rather than building new venues: they inaugurated a tunnel at Tai di Cadore, and the government and committee have put more trains, zero-emission buses and a fleet of Fiat Pandas and Alfa Romeos into service.

Organizers say those vehicles are expected to make 400,000 trips and transport 1.5 million people; Claudio Andrea Gemme, head of Italys highway authority, said at the tunnel ceremony, "Our goal was to complete this project for the Olympics." Long distances, winding mountain roads and complex connections pose practical problems.

The official transport app lists a recommended itinerary from Cortinas curling and bobsled events to the snowboard competitions in Livigno that totals 18 hours and 6 minutes of travel using shuttles, high-speed and regional trains and buses.

milan-cortina organizing committee, cortina d'ampezzo, livigno snowboard competitions, tai di cadore tunnel, official transport app, 400,000 trips, 1.5 million people, fiat pandas fleet, alfa romeos fleet, zero-emission buses, cortina to livigno itinerary, 18 hours 6 minutes, 8,500 square miles, bormio men's downhill