The Sardinia Region has emphatically announced the start of the safety process for the Mughina tunnel, one of the main road entrances to Nuoro. But behind the official announcement lies a weighty fact: the tunnel will remain closed for at least another three years, and its reopening is estimated no earlier than the second half of 2028.

A long timeframe for a strategic infrastructure, closed since January 2022, which represents one of the main routes for those arriving from the provincial road to Oliena and Dorgali. Since then, residents of Nuoro and commuters have been forced to take alternative routes, with a severe impact on urban traffic: congested traffic, forced crossings in the town center, and a constant flow of heavy vehicles weighing on the city on a daily basis. In the press release released in the past few hours, the Region describes a long-awaited turning point.

"One of the main road entrances to Nuoro is reopening," reads the statement, which announces the allocation of €10 million to begin work on securing the tunnel . The Regional Council, at the suggestion of President Alessandra Todde, approved the allocation of resources by CIPESS (Inter-Ministerial Committee for Economic Planning and Sustainable Development) through the Revolving Fund under the Agreement for Development and Cohesion. This new funding brings the total available resources to €20 million, considering that an additional €10 million had already been allocated in 2023 following the geological surveys. And this is precisely one of the key issues.

Despite the 2023 funding, no final project had been finalized, and the tunnel remained in its current state, with no concrete work initiated. This inaction prolonged the closure and aggravated the inconvenience to the city. Only now, the Region explains, has the Department of Public Works, led by Antonio Piu, been working closely with the Municipality of Nuoro, ultimately agreeing on a technical and economic feasibility study. However, the official timetable dampens enthusiasm. Of the newly allocated €10 million, €4.7 million will be used to complete the project design, which is expected to be completed by the first half of 2027.

Only then will the final phase begin: the remaining €5.3 million is scheduled for 2028, the year the work is expected to be completed, estimated in the second half of the year. If all goes as planned. Essentially, today's announcement certifies the project's overall financial coverage, but it also confirms that Nuoro will have to live with the closed tunnel for years to come. The Mughina tunnel is not a marginal project. It is a key hub for the ring road and for access to the Barbagia capital, and its closure has transformed a temporary problem into a structural mobility problem. In short, a significant step forward, while the "light" at the end of the tunnel, for now, is still far away. And no one has yet officially explained how it was possible that a public work, open and tested, where thousands of cars have passed for years, which should have had a reinforced concrete shell at least 40 centimeters thick, in some cases had just a few centimeters of concrete. A critical situation emerged only during safety adjustments and led to its closure.

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