Walker - 1967 - A geography of Italy

C O M M U N I C A T I O N S
road hauliers not only in the remoter areas but on the medium and long distances,
and this tendency is being accelerated by the spread o f the motorway network.
The popularity o f the car and the motor scooter has also cut deeply into the
railways’ passenger traffic. Although nothing so drastic as the Beeching plan has
ever been mooted some o f the remoter feeder lines have been abandoned and
new investment is being directed towards the improvement o f long-distance
trunk routes on which the railways may hope to operate competitively. T o this
end electrification has been pushed ahead (for example from Salerno to Palermo)
and on several sections the track has been (Battipaglia-Reggio Calabria) or is in
process o f being doubled (the Adriatic coast route). T he operation o f fast airconditioned
‘super-trains’, for example between Rome and Milan and between
Turin and Lyons, is another feature o f the modernization programme.
The major trunk routes and the essential links through the Alps and Apennines
are summarized in fig. 52.
R O A D S . The volume o f both passenger and goods traffic on the roads vastly
exceeds that carried by the railways and there seems every prospect that the
disparity will increase. Between 1957 and 1961 the number of cars and lorries on
the roads increased by 83% to nearly 3 miUion and the number o f motor cycles
and tricycles increased by 28% to over 4 miUion. Four main types o f road may be
recognized - motorways (autostrade), national trunk roads, provincial roads and
communal roads. Italy was the pioneer o f motorways in Europe but those built
before the war (mainly radiating from Milan), although guarded against cross
traffic, were not dual carriageways. Since 1956 they have been doubled and incorporated
into a much more ambitious network radiating from Milan to Genoa,
Turin, Sesto Calende, Varese, Como and Venice (the Seremssitna), and penetrating
deep into the peninsula as far as Salerno (the Strada del Sole). Private enterprise
(notably Fiat) has an interest in part o f the system but the majority o f it is
being financed through IR I. There is no doubt that a timely expenditure on
motorways has provided an economic asset o f the first order and at the same time
is making a contribution, particularly by means o f the Strada del Sole, to national
integration. The links between the Itahan motorway system and that o f her
trans-Alpine neighbours is so far unsatisfactory but the extension o f the autostrada
from Aosta to the entrances o f the M t Blanc and Great St Bernard tunnels
and the construction o f the proposed motorway up to the Brenner should do
much to remedy this weakness. Tolls are levied according to engine capacity;
that for a 1500-cc car works out at about one penny per mile. The motorways
supplement a comprehensive national system o f conventional highways; they are
best exemphfied in the famous consular roads leading to Rome. Like similar roads
in Britain, they are often quite inadequate for the volume o f traffic but the motorways
have done much to relieve the congestion. The subsidiary network maintained
by the provincial and local authorities varies greatly in quality and density;
on the whole the British counterpart provides a much more satisfactory coverage.
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