Motorways, 70% of the network was built between 1960 and 1980
Consistency and characteristics of our motorway infrastructure, starting with the first Milan-Laghi section, 100 years ago
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2' min read
100 years have passed since the inauguration of Italy's first motorway - the 40-kilometre Milano-Laghi -. This is recalled in the Green Book produced by Autostrade per l'Italia with Il Sole 24 Ore. In 1924 there were 50,000 cars on the road, today there are over 40 million. In 1955, when the network had grown to 500 kilometres, the motorway plan was approved and the great adventure of the Autostrade del Sole motorway began. Between 1960 and 1980 alone, 5,000 kilometres were built, the bulk of the current network, including the Autostrada del Sole and the Mont Blanc Tunnel. This is to say that, as the Green Paper recalls, at the end of the 1970s, 'about 5,900 kilometres of the current 7,000 were built, while in the following decades, mainly capacity expansions were carried out with the construction of third and fourth lanes for about 2,000 kilometres'. A gigantic effort was required to overcome the difficulties of a difficult territory that stimulated advanced engineering solutions. And in this effort, Italy led the way in Europe. "At the end of the 1970s, 85% of the current motorway network was in operation in Italy, 57% in Germany, 32% in France and 12% in Spain," the Green Paper recalls.
But after the great setback that began in the 1980s, there was an overtaking: 'Today, the Italian motorway system is, in terms of kilometric extension, the fourth largest in Europe after Spain, Germany and France, which have a larger surface area'. The Green Paper also recalls the peculiarities of an infrastructure network that has spread rapidly in many countries, but that only in Italy has unique characteristics, as unique is our conformation and orography. This is why there are 1,200 km of bridges and viaducts on the motorway network, a number four times higher than the continental average, compared to the 360 km of Germany (which has a network of around 10,500 km) or the 320 of Spain (which has around 11,000 km of motorways). There are a total of 500 km of tunnels, i.e. half of all tunnels in the European motorway network.
But the challenge with the territory continues with the management of landslide phenomena in a country - Italy - where half of the landslides recorded in the whole of Europe are counted. Looking ahead, the challenge continues against the effects of climate change - which is changing the temperature, duration and intensity of atmospheric phenomena. Phenomena that, in the words of the Green Paper, 'place all infrastructures - motorways in particular - in front of new problems that are not yet transposed either by a general strategy or by regulations'. According to the document, 'the increase in global temperatures expected in the coming decades requires systems for monitoring, managing and structurally adapting motorways and their surroundings that are still being studied'.
