MILAN
One of the biggest challenges in this month’s Winter Olympics may be off the slopes: moving hundreds of thousands of spectators and athletes over a swath of northern Italy. The Games are being organised at seven sites — the most spread-out Olympics ever.
Italian authorities argue that organising events up to hundreds of kilometres from each other will limit the environmental impact. But “the more fragmented the venue layout, the more complex the mobility demands — not only for athletes and officials, but especially for spectators, who generate the largest transport volumes”, said Robert Steiger, a professor at Innsbruck University in Austria specialising in the effects of climate change on tourism.
Andrea Gibelli, head of the local branch of Italy’s state railways, said in November that “the real challenge will be to offer a service that can compete with private transport”. “With these spread-out Olympic Games, the first instinct is to say: ‘I’ll go by car,’” he said. Spectators are “strongly encouraged to arrive by train or to park outside of sensitive areas and then continue by shuttle”, Andrea Scrocco, transport director for the Olympics, told media.
In Milan, there will be a stepped-up train, metro and bus service also at night. But getting to the mountain sites will be more difficult as there is no high-speed Olympic train as there was for Beijing in 2022. A spectator going to watch the skiing in Cortina and arriving at the nearest major airport — Venice — would have to take a bus from the airport to Venice train station to take a regional train, then a bus, then walk to a ski lift and finally walk to the slopes.
A more convenient cable car to and from the entrance of Cortina has not been completed. For spectators, car travel will often remain faster, despite the risk of traffic jams, very limited access to the resorts and reservation-only parking. Uber, a partner of the Games, could benefit from the chaos and expects its activity to double in the Olympic zones during the event.
