- [Narrator] For more than a decade, crews have been drilling tens of miles through the base of the Alps, all because they need to solve
a traffic bottleneck here. The final goal? An $11 billion megaproject
called the Brenner Base Tunnel. The project will ultimately create the longest underground railway
connection in the world. But building a tunnel over 30 miles long that cuts through one of
the largest mountain ranges is neither easy nor cheap. And there's still nearly a decade before it's ready for people
and goods to pass through it. So why is Europe taking
on this massive project? To understand, look at this map. These are the nine main trade corridors that make up the European Union's Trans-European Transport Network. The TEN-T is an infrastructure plan the EU began developing back in the 1990s, and the Brenner Base Tunnel,
or BBT, is at the heart of the Scandinavian-Mediterranean
TEN corridor. As the longest route in the TEN-T, this corridor will link the
ports up here in Scandinavia to those all the way down
in the Mediterranean, and along the way, it will connect the $4
trillion economy in Germany to the two trillion one in Italy. In 2021 alone, Italy
exported around $78 billion worth of goods to Germany and imported almost 89
billion's worth from Germany. Some of that trade will happen on the BBT. But to cross that area now, there's only a slow railway,
built back in the 1860s, and this main highway, the Brenner Pass, this highway has since become one of Europe's busiest
mountain corridors. Around 50 million tons of goods move across the highway each year. And just in 2022, 2.5 million
trucks passed through it, accounting for over 30% of
all freight crossing the Alps. So in an effort to alleviate
some of that traffic and lower emissions in the area, Austria has imposed emergency measures, restricting transit trucks
from driving at night and transporting certain goods that are particularly
suitable for rail transport. The country now also
limits the number of trucks to, on a busy day, around 200 per hour. These restrictions have
become controversial. The European Commission
upholds its stance that... - It is first and foremost up
to these three member states to come to solutions on
on this particular issue. - [Narrator] Those three member states are Austria, Italy, and Germany. But the Italian Deputy Prime Minister says that these limits
infringe on the right to free movement of goods within the EU, while the Austrian
Ministry for Climate Action says that litigation will
not solve the traffic problem on the Brenner Corridor,
no matter the outcome. Italy did not respond
to requests for comment, but at the root of this
is Austria's desire for a modal shift from highway to railway. That's where this $11
billion tunnel comes back in. The BBT is designed to reduce both the distance and the time it takes to travel by train from Fortezza in Italy to Innsbrook in Austria. Here you can see the proposed route compared to the current railway system. Unlike the old one, which goes up and winds
around the mountain, the BBT plans to cut through the Alps at a speed around 100 miles per hour. This will cut the freight route from 105 minutes down to just 35. And the European Commission
also expects this tunnel to increase the rail capacity from 260 trains per day to 660. Since rail transit generally emits less CO2 than transit trucks, the BBT could also reduce
some of the pollution. But all of this is contingent
on the tunnel's completion, which is a massive engineering feat. Currently, five construction
sites are in operation, with three in Austria and two in Italy. The most recent developments are here, in the southernmost construction site. Because of the proximity
to the Isarco River, crews first needed to
stabilize the terrain. From these shafts, crews
injected liquid nitrogen into the soil through a tube. This nitrogen froze the
water present in the soil and in turn stabilized the terrain so the excavation for the
tunnel could be completed. And now they're working
to restore the area to its original state as much as possible, through a process called renaturation. They've made progress on this, but slowly. It took this single construction site nine years to get to this point
and cost over $315 million. And while this lot is nearly finished, the larger project is not expected to be completed until 2032, which means that there's
still almost 10 years until this tunnel can even begin to ease the pressure at the Brenner Pass. Those familiar with the
situation at the Brenner Pass between Austria and Italy do not expect the restrictions
and proposed legal action to derail the tunnel project. Italy and Austria are still co-financing 50% of this megaproject in the Alps, with the remaining half
financed by the EU. And experts note the potential
impact expands beyond trade, since the Brenner has historically served as a military connection. in World War II, Germany and Italy cemented their partnership here, and German troops and supplies
passed through the Brenner before Allied bombing efforts
cut off the supply lines, an effort said to have shortened the war. In the modern day, the TEN-T is still seen as a way to ensure swift
and seamless movement of military personnel,
materials, and assets. And in 2017, the EU announced that the TEN-T would
extend into Eastern Europe, including Eastern
partnership member states like Armenia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the commission doubled down on this intent by putting forward an updated action plan on military mobility. But for all of these
plans to come to fruition, the completion of the BBT and its connections to
other roots is vital, and after delays, it's still
at least a decade away.