1964: The First Automobile Tunnel Through the Alps is Officially Opened to the Public

March 19, 1964

The Great St Bernard Tunnel joining Switzerland and Italy was officially opened to vehicular traffic. This tunnel became the first one running through the formidable Alps for automobiles, and it is a major link between the municipality of Martigny in southwestern Switzerland and the comune of Aosta in northwestern Italy.

The tunnel was built approximately 1,600 feet (487.7 meters) underneath the Great St Bernard Pass. This mountain pass was named in memory of a Catholic priest who was canonized a saint in 1681. St. Bernard of Menthon founded a still-existing hospice atop the pass by the early 11th century to provide critical assistance to travelers making their way through the frequently hazardous region. The most famous and beloved component of this centuries-old mission is the breed of dogs likewise named after St. Bernard and trained to rescue travelers stranded in the surrounding mountains.

Construction on the Great St Bernard Tunnel began in 1958. Over the next few years, about 1,200 workers were involved in this ambitious and unprecedented project. Tragically, however, a total of 17 of those workers – eleven Italians and six Swiss – were killed in accidents while helping to build the tunnel. A solemn tribute was paid to these men during the inaugural ceremonies for the structure.

The first 300 toll-paying people to travel through the Great St Bernard Tunnel in their automobiles on that opening day did so in less than 10 minutes. In its account of the tunnel’s formal debut, United Press International reported that at least one driver evidently delegated payment of the required toll to somebody else.  “The first toll car through the 3.6-mile [5.8-kilometer] tunnel was a custom-built Fiat driven by Italy’s leading automobile designer Gian Battista Farina,” stated this news story. “But the honor of buying the first ticket went to his passenger, Italian Parliamentary Deputy Enzo Giaccherro.”

Giorgio Dardanelli, an engineer who helped design the Great St Bernard Tunnel, described at the time of its opening how he and others sought to address one of the biggest potential dangers in that part of the world. “We put an avalanche-proof concrete roof over part of the access roads,” he explained. “Motorists now think they are driving along a veranda with a magnificent view over the Alps.” (The accompanying photo of the avalanche cover on the Italian side of the tunnel was taken in 2006.)

The Great St Bernard Tunnel is part of European route E27, a road that covers 220 miles (350 kilometers) altogether between Acosta and northern France’s prefecture and commune of Belfort.

Photo Credit: Lysippos (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en)

For more information on the Great St Bernard Tunnel, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_St_Bernard_Tunnel

A video about the opening of this tunnel can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wBuWNlaeDM