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Autostrade of Italy

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Chris:
Interesting pictures.

http://www.alpsroads.net/roads/it/a8/

Notice the use of Gravellona Toce. It is a small town with a population of just over 7,500. It happens to be the northern terminus of A26. Domodossola would be a much better destination.

Chris:
For example SS36 is a dual carriageway superstrada (SS means Strada Statali (state road), not Superstrada), has 21 tunnels over a distance of 25 miles / 40 kilometers. I estimate between 80 and 90% of the mileage is underground.

J N Winkler:

--- Quote from: Chris on September 11, 2010, 06:14:06 AM ---The first Italian Autostrada opened in 1924, known as the "Autostrada dei Laghi" (motorway of the lakes) in the North of Italy. It has present-day numbers A8 and A9. Although it was the earliest Autostrada, it didn't feature more than 2 undivided lanes, but it had limited access and was a toll road. Back in those days, only 85,000 vehicles were circulating on the Italian road network.
--- End quote ---

In actuality the Milan-Lakes autostrade consisted of a main stretch, from Milan to Varese, and two spurs, one called Breccia (running from Lainate to Como) and the other called Vergiate (running from Gallarate to Sesto Calende).  Milan-Varese opened on 21 September 1924, while Breccia opened on 28 June 1925 and Vergiate opened on 3 September 1925.  The total length constructed was 84.5 km (49 km for Milan-Varese, 24 km for Breccia, 11 km for Vergiate).  Milan-Varese had three lanes (paved width 11 m, fence-to-fence width 14 m), while Breccia and Vergiate had two lanes each (paved width 8 m, fence-to-fence width 11 m).

Most of the early autostrade were built as toll roads with concessions granted by the Italian state.  The typical form of contract provided for reversion after fifty years with conditional subsidy from the state to the autostrada company to cover operating deficits.  I believe the sole exception was the Autocamionale between Genoa and Serravalle Scrivia, which was built directly by the Italian state.


--- Quote ---Construction speed picked up in the 1920's and 1930's with hundreds of miles of new Autostrada. It remains a point of discussion which Autostrada was the first to feature at least 4 lanes and a divided roadway.
--- End quote ---

Surely it is agreed that there were no dual-carriageway autostrade built before the war.

Net autostrada construction before World War II was approximately 488 km.  This includes edge cases like the Autocamionale, which was unusual in that it was for trucks only and did not support high speeds, but excludes others like the Rome-Ostia ceremonial road, which is occasionally described as an autostrada but not counted as such by Kaftan, Strohkark, or me.  (A problem in investigating early motorways is that the term motor road and its equivalent in other languages does not necessarily imply full control of access and design for high-speed through traffic--in certain contexts, particularly colonial development, it can mean simply any road which is paved to handle car traffic.)

BTW, an inspection visit to the Rome-Ostia road was the occasion of the quote from Puricelli (builder of the Milan-Lakes autostrade) which I use as a signature line in this forum.


--- Quote ---Naturally, construction was halted during the Second World War, and didn't continue until the late 1950's, and picked up speed in the 1960's.
--- End quote ---

My guess would be that the first postwar autostrada, and also the first dual-carriageway autostrada, was the Autostrada del Sole running from Milan to Naples.  I don't think the original autostrade began to be upgraded to dual carriageway until well into the 1960's.  For example, Strade e Traffico has a picture from the early 1960's showing traffic queued up (in four lanes) on the approach to an exit toll station on the Milan-Lakes autostrade; at the time it was still single-carriageway.

The key moment in postwar autostrada construction seems to have been consideration of a multiyear autostrada construction program by the Italian parliament in 1955.


--- Quote ---The Italian signage is considered one of the worst, or the worst in Europe by many European road enthusiasts. Italy uses green signs with white capitalized letters on motorways and blue signs on non-motorways. An overload of destinations are present in cities. It's not uncommon to find a directional sign with 10 or 15 local destinations. Distance tableaux are largely absent, and road numbers are small (often too small). There is very little consistency.
--- End quote ---

The signing guidelines are not online and have to be obtained by post (a friend of mine got his copy from Autostrade SpA, which is responsible for the majority of the autostrada mileage in Italy, including the Autostrada del Sole).  It is possible to download construction plans for small projects on Italian autostrade but in my experience the signing plans have been sparse and never pattern-accurate.

Chris:

--- Quote ---Surely it is agreed that there were no dual-carriageway autostrade built before the war.
--- End quote ---

None at all? That surprises me, I would've guessed they copied some dual carriageway designs from the late 1930's Reichsautobahnen in Germany.


--- Quote ---I don't think the original autostrade began to be upgraded to dual carriageway until well into the 1960's.
--- End quote ---

So I've read. Many pre-war Autostrade weren't doubled until the 1960's, for example A6 from Turin to Savona.

Another interesting feature in Italy is that tunnels often have a 130 km/h speed limit. It is often reduced to 100 or even 80 km/h in most other European countries.

J N Winkler:

--- Quote from: Chris on September 12, 2010, 06:14:14 AM ---
--- Quote ---Surely it is agreed that there were no dual-carriageway autostrade built before the war.
--- End quote ---

None at all? That surprises me, I would've guessed they copied some dual carriageway designs from the late 1930's Reichsautobahnen in Germany.
--- End quote ---

Nope.  None at all.  Part of the reason has to do with the slowdown in autostrada construction in the early 1930's, when the autostrade began to feel significant traffic competition from the strade statali network (created 1928 and put under the administration of an autonomous highway agency, which had a strong political mandate to make significant improvements in running surfaces).  Padua-Venice, built 1933, was the last private autostrada.  The Autocamionale came later, in 1935, but was also single-carriageway only.

The real inflexion point for dual-carriageway construction, I think, was around 1930.  Before 1930 it is hard to find serious motorway proposals which were dual-carriageway--for example, London-Brighton (1928-29) was single-carriageway in spite of a brief flirtation with dual-carriageway construction, the original HAFRABA proposal (1927) was single-carriageway, the Cologne-Bonn Autostrasse (finished 1932, but started 1928) was also single-carriageway, and even the Umgebungstrasse Opladen (opened after the start of RAB construction, IIRC) was also single-carriageway.  After 1930, proposals began to be updated to incorporate dual carriageways.  For example, the HAFRABA updated proposal (1931) called for dual carriageways.  Design guidance (notably Memorandum 336, issued 1930 in Britain) was also beginning to call for dual carriageway construction for new major roads on safety grounds alone, and by 1935 Britain also had a 400 VPH peak-hour warrant.

But these developments didn't make their way down to southern Europe, I think partly because of the reliance on private finance not just in Italy but also in Spain (motorway law in 1928, several proposals, none built, all of the ones I have seen personally or found described in Rodriguez Lázaro's book calling for single carriageway only, occasionally with provision of service drives--specifications often interior to those of the Italian autostrade).  Aside from the problem of traffic competition, which existed in Spain too because of the Circuito de Firmes Especiales, there is also a consideration in that depression and high unemployment tended to restrain growth in automobile ownership between the wars, and in Italy at least the low-hanging fruit tended to be picked first--later autostrade schemes were more on the financial margins than the earlier ones.


--- Quote ---Another interesting feature in Italy is that tunnels often have a 130 km/h speed limit. It is often reduced to 100 or even 80 km/h in most other European countries.
--- End quote ---

The Italians and Spanish have historically tunnelled with abandon, and been less aggressive in outfitting their tunnels with command-and-control infrastructure than North Americans and northern Europeans.  Tunnel safety experts have for years noted a rather marked north-south divide in this respect in Europe.  But there are now strict tunnel safety standards (EU-mandated, I think) and I am waiting to see if that has an effect on the viability of tunnel construction in Spain.  Of course I know I will have to be patient because road construction in general has more or less shut down in Spain because of the financial crisis.

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