MATREI AM BRENNER (Austria), May 31 \u2014 Thousands of Austrians protesting against noise and pollution blocked a key European highway linking Germany and Italy on Saturday, but widely feared traffic chaos was averted.<\/p>\n
Protesters gathered on a stretch of the Brenner Pass road that crosses the Alps into Italy.<\/p>\n
Communities in Austria\u2019s western Tyrol province have long complained about the traffic, especially trucks. The protesters at Matrei am Brenner called for an end to pollution, noise and traffic jams they say are plaguing local communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so much freight traffic, and this is the main transit route from the north, from Germany to Italy, and far too little of it is being shifted onto rail,\u201d said 71-year-old Senn Burkhard.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are more and more of them. The roads can\u2019t cope any more, and the people can\u2019t cope any more either,\u201d added Klaus Rott Hauptmann, 64, an industrial mechanic.<\/p>\n
Protest organiser Karl Muehlsteiger said 5,000 people took part in the demonstration, while the fire service put the number at 4,500, according to the APA news agency.<\/p>\n
Muehlsteiger, the mayor of Gries am Brenner, told AFP the event had been \u201chugely successful\u201d.<\/p>\n
Austrians demand action<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a very, very clear signal to the top political level \u2014 they can no longer play it down or ignore it, and now it\u2019s up to those at the top to comply and start working on our demands,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Because of the protest, authorities closed part of the highway and surrounding roads to transit traffic from 11.00am (0900 GMT) to 7.00pm.<\/p>\n
Austria\u2019s motoring club OeAMTC had warned earlier of \u201cextensive traffic jams\u201d and advised drivers to avoid Tyrol. But it said the feared gridlock did not materialise.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe disaster didn\u2019t happen because we announced it in advance,\u201d the organisation\u2019s Harald Lasser told AFP.<\/p>\n
The German motorists\u2019 association ADAC also said there were no significant disruptions on the German side.<\/p>\n
However, Italian train operator Trenitalia reported massive disruption to rail traffic on the Brenner to Verona line during the protest due to a \u201cmalicious act by unknown persons\u201d.<\/p>\n
The OeAMTC said there could be heavier traffic on Sunday and Monday as people may have postponed planned trips.<\/p>\n
Lorry traffic through the Alpine Brenner Pass has increased to the point that more than 2.4 million vehicles used it last year, according to mobility organisation VCOe.<\/p>\n
This compares to 860,000 trucks passing through neighbouring Switzerland via four transit routes, VCOe added.<\/p>\n
In 1991, only 900,000 lorries used the Brenner Pass, according to road statistics.<\/p>\n
Austria has long battled the European Commission, which has said any ban on heavy goods lorries risks disrupting European Union road traffic.<\/p>\n
In 2023, the EU\u2019s top court suspended an Austrian order banning heavy goods lorries from a stretch of the highway.<\/p>\n
Austria has been in dispute with its EU neighbours over the environmental impact of truck traffic since it joined the bloc in 1995. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MATREI AM BRENNER (Austria), May 31 \u2014 Thousands of Austrians protesting against noise and pollution blocked a key…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[16],"tags":[50,39280,39380,39378,39281,39379,39377],"class_list":["post-74929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alps","tag-alps","tag-brenner-pass","tag-european-highway","tag-karl-muehlsteiger","tag-matrei-am-brenner","tag-trenitalia-disruption","tag-tyrol-protest"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116667230763486335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}