Italy (Autostrade) A3 widening project south of Naples

[froggie]

While on a tour during my recent port visit, noticed a widening project underway on a stretch of the A3 Autostrade south of Naples, Italy, reaching at least as far as Pompeii.  It's a 4-to-6 project with some intermediate sections already completed and partially opened...lots of 3-to-2-to-3-to-2 going on.  Several REALLY OLD overpasses that still need to be replaced...the overpasses look like basic, bland originals where you can barely squeeze 4 lanes underneath.  Took photos from the tour bus but didn't have a chance to post them before we left port.

[Chris]

The widening project is supposed to be finished this summer, but delays with Italian road projects are not uncommon.

A *much* larger project is the complete rebuilding of 400 kilometers of mountain autostrada A3 from Salerno down to Reggio Calabria. It's been going on for a good 15 years now, but the widening and reconstruction of bridges, tunnels and roadways was initially very slow, but things sped up in the last 5 years or so.

This is usually quoted as the largest road reconstruction project in European history.

[Chris]

A3 south of Naples has some hairy situations.





This toll road initially opened as a wide two-lane road in 1928. It is usually quoted as one of the first "Autostrade" along with those near Milan, but back in the 1920s they had no freeway standards at all. Many autostrade were constructed in the 1920s and 1930s in Northern Italy, but none of them was up to freeway standards. That changed by the mid- to late 1950s when most of these old autostrade were upgraded with divided roadways and a median barrier.

Still, Italian toll roads do still have substandard features, especially the alignment and cross-sections. Shoulders are narrow and frequently lacking. Italy is the only country in Europe that does not set a lower speed limit at tunnels by default. There are many tunnels where 130 km/h (80 miles per hour) is allowed.

[Truvelo]

Most tunnels here don't have lower limits. Those on Mainland Europe are a pain when using cruise control. You have to keep changing speed or risk doing 130 and keeping a watch for hidden police with speedtraps. The only situation where lower speed limits are needed is when the curvature is tight or the lanes are narrow.

[seicer]

This shows a stark difference: http://goo.gl/maps/aULJT
Pan and check out the old bridge: http://goo.gl/maps/XSscU

[J N Winkler]

This toll road initially opened as a wide two-lane road in 1928. It is usually quoted as one of the first "Autostrade" along with those near Milan, but back in the 1920s they had no freeway standards at all. Many autostrade were constructed in the 1920s and 1930s in Northern Italy, but none of them was up to freeway standards. That changed by the mid- to late 1950s when most of these old autostrade were upgraded with divided roadways and a median barrier.

The Naples-Pompeii autostrada was opened in 1929 by Autostrade Meridionali, a private company which received a build-and-operate concession from the government.  I believe it was one of the few lengths of autostrade that was consistently profitable in its early years and was never taken over by the government ("Irizzata" in Italian--the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale [IRI] being the Italian government agency responsible for restructuring troubled companies), unlike the case with the Milan-Lakes itinerary and other first-generation autostrade.

Most of the first-generation autostrade were widened to the modern motorway cross-section with dual carriageways as part of the autostrada construction co-financed by the government and industry under the Legge Romita of 1955.  (The deal was that the Italian government would supply up to forty percent of the construction cost, the rest coming from private capital.  Most of the first-generation autostrade that were still in IRI hands were transferred to private concessionaires as part of this process.)  The Naples-Pompeii, however, was widened to a full dual-carriageway cross-section before the Legge Romita.

It is important not to sell early Italian autostrada construction too short.  Yes, the early autostrade were single carriageway (8 m width for two lanes and 11 m for three lanes) and some of the early interchanges were single-sided, meaning that traffic in one direction on the autostrada mainline had to make left turns to enter and exit.  The Milan-Lakes autostrade also featured two spurs which connected at flat wye intersections (biforcazioni), so connecting from a spur to the mainline or vice versa meant a left turn for some movements.  However, double-sided accesses were introduced within ten years (notably on the Autostrada Firenze-Mare connecting Florence with the Tyrrhenian Sea coast) and autostrade have always had full control of access and comprehensive grade separation of all intersecting roads.

[agentsteel53]

This shows a stark difference: http://goo.gl/maps/aULJT

holy senseless lane striping!

[Brandon]

This shows a stark difference: http://goo.gl/maps/aULJT

holy senseless lane striping!

Holy lack of shoulders as well!