Talk:Gotthard Road Tunnel

AdamSEOWorks (Uhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gotthard_Road_TunnelTC)

2001 Fire
The 2001 fire, a major disaster in a one of a kind transportation tunnel, is barely mentioned in the article. Hell, even the History Channel had a whole special devoted to the accident and the resulting changes to safety just in this one tunnel. Cs302b (talk) 23:03, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Length dispute
No, it's not the worlds longest road tunnel! The Lærdal Tunnel (Lærdalstunnelen), opened in 2000 is longer with its 24505 meters. --ZorroIII 16:50, 2004 Dec 19 (UTC)
 * The St Gotthard Tunnel is not the longest road tunnel. However, there is little doubt that it qualifies as the longest motorway/expressway tunnel. Despite no central reservation, all road maps still show it as part of a motorway. This may be the defining difference. --DF08 09:31, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Maybe the article text should be changed to reflect that it's the longest motorway/expressway tunnel? --ZorroIII 20:49, 2004 Dec 20 (UTC)
 * The article states Traffic flows through only one tunnel, which carries traffic both ways, with each direction allocated only one lane. This is exactly the same as for The Lærdal Tunnel (on European route E16), so I don't think this reservation about expressway gets you anywhere, since E16 is just as much an expressway. So St. Gotthard is the second longest, any way you look at it. Sorry. -- Egil 20:24, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * The claim is still valid (to some extents) if you look at it on a map. Swiss maps show the tunnel as an expressway (with or without central reservation, it's in red-and-orange, whereas normal routes are cinnamon, yellow or white). --DF08 05:53, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * So St. Gotthard is the worlds longest tunnel that appear in red-and-orange on Swiss maps. Excellent. (If it was a full four-lane tunnel I guess there could have been a point. A two-lane defined as an expressway seems far too moot). -- Egil 08:18, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Some maps in the 1990s show it green-and-white, so that claim (red-and-orange), too, is refutable. ;-) Before this becomes an article about whether it's the longest expressway tunnel by colour coding, or if it's the longest expressway tunnel, period, consider this. The authorities rate the road an expressway with no central reservation (Autostrasse), so it's gotta be using the Autostrasse traffic sign. Now whether an Autostrasse is an expressway is a different matter. Better to put it as "the longest expressway tunnel in the world according to the local definition of "expressway"." I've been through the tunnel; it didn't feel like an expressway tunnel at all. Most Swiss non-expressways out of localities go at 80 km/h; ditto with St Gotthard. --DF08 12:44, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Second tunnel
Someone just erased "Second tube planned" for the Gotthard Road Tunnel on the List of tunnels by length. How are the plans going for a second parallell road tunnel ? There should be something written even if it is postponed without a time plan. BIL 14:33, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


 * As I knew the "second" tunnel will be digged new.. next to the existing emercency tunnel, so that the emercency tunnel still will exist..then between the old one and the new one.. and not that the emercency tunnel will be "upgradet" as second traffic tunnel.Zack McKracken (talk) 20:02, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Long and short routes
The road taken on that expressway is actually longer than the direct route through the St. Gotthard tunnel. This may or may not be true, but certainly without stating from where to where you are going it doesn't make any sense at all.Nico b. 09:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Map request
I believe this article could benefit from a route map. Would anybody be able to provide one? – voidxor (talk &#124; contrib) 23:57, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Refimprove
Citations in the English-language version should be in the English language. This is so that any editor can verify that the reference states what it's expected to state.Wjhonson (talk) 19:54, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * True, but per WP:NONENG, non-English sources are not forbidden either. As such, I'm removing the tag. — howcheng  {chat} 07:18, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

What are the "other things"?
Under the section History, it says, "In response to the automobile boom in Switzerland and other things..."

Seems to me that an expert ought to correct this. I didn't want to delete the phrase "and other things" because if there are indeed other factors, the world should get to know about them.

Googee3 (talk) 05:34, 5 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Mhh "and other things"... I would say.. still classified military use.Zack McKracken (talk) 20:09, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Explosive dispute
Hello there!

"Large quantities of Second World War military explosives were stored in a depot near the Gotthard Road Tunnel mouth" This statement is wrong. The tunnel didn't exist at that time, not even in the Swiss citizen's dreams. The article does not tell that the explosive dated back to the second world war, in reality it only tells about the "strategy dating back to World War II". From the second world war on, bridges, tunnels and other strategic passages were built to include permanent mined facilities. In case an invading force tried to pass through the construction, the army would have blasted the structure.

And more. "The known presence of the explosives may have made firemen reluctant to enter the tunnel": the citation is unrelated. The accident described in the citation happened in an actual ammunition storage, not in a mined structure like the Gotthard tunnel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.246.191.121 (talk) 00:38, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

mention w/out src fire fighter hesitation
sorry i might have broken wikipedia protocol by removing the bit again before reading history comments. that was unintentionally unpolite, feel free to restore while we discuss.

following up Suonii180 cmt. swissinfo is a raliable source and they do not mention fire fighters hesitation in the linked article. the presence of explosive near the tunnel is merely an anectode in relation to the accident in the tunnel and had no impact on it, unless a reliable source brings evidence. the src used here to support fire fighters hesitation is not swissinfo it is the bbc: the article talks about something completely unrelated and then happen to mention the gotthard accident and an unsupported rumour: “In 2001, 11 people died in the Gotthard Tunnel […] It emerged that large quantities of explosives stored there years ago were still in a depot close to the tunnel mouth. It's rumoured that local fire officers, having heard about the stockpile, were reluctant to enter the tunnel to fight the blaze.”

I do not think bbc is a reliable source on this bit as they are far from the scene both geographically and timewise (art is from jul 21, 20 years later)

in sum, that paragraph is unrelated to the gotthard tunnel history or to the accident of 2001, and it is easily recognisable as a vector of speculations, not facts. 2A02:8084:20E4:1480:8D42:4473:8C4:31D9 (talk) 10:42, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

found my wp pwd. Topic above and related edits are mine. thx for the patience Giambo (talk) 11:16, 28 August 2022 (UTC)