Posted on 12/20/2004 6:41:40 PM PST by Murtyo
A SICILIAN motorway from Palermo to Messina, contruction of which began in 1969, will finally be inaugurated today by Silvio Berlusconi.
At 113 miles (182km), that represents progress of about three miles a year. The delay is blamed partly on the alleged siphoning-off of funds and materials by the Mafia.
The road has cost €730 million (£500 million), partly funded by the European Investment Bank. For years it has been shown as a dotted line on Italian maps.
The news magazine Panorama said: “Habemus autostrada” (we have a motorway) — an ironic reference to the Latin formula used for the eventual election of a Pope. The motorway is part of a planned north-south European motorway network dubbed Corridor One, linking Palermo and Berlin.
But even when it is opened today only one carriageway will be usable because of a waterlogged tunnel, with cars and lorries able to travel only from Palermo to Messina.
Claudio Fava, a centre-left Euro MP from Sicily, said that the project had been subject to “countless delays”, partly because of the difficult Sicilian coastal terrain. Half of the last 19 miles runs through 16 tunnels and over 14 viaducts. But Signor Fava said that the delays were also due to faulty construction, legal challenges and judicial inquiries into alleged Mafia “infiltration” of construction firms.
“I see no reason to celebrate the inauguration of a motorway after 35 years when in reality it is only half-open,” he said. “Since it came to power in 2001 the Berlusconi Government has promised Sicilians new dams, motorways, ports and airports. There is no trace of any of them.”
Government television advertisements lauding the new motorway feature a symbolic handshake between Eugenio Corini, captain of Palermo football club, and Alessandro Parisi, captain of the rival Messina team.
Gianfranco Micciché, Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs and head of the Sicilian branch of Forza Italia, Signor Berlusconi’s party, said that Sicilians had come to think of the project as “a joke”.
“But myth has become reality,” Signor Micciché said. “We thought even our children would never live to see it finished.”
He said that the last 25 miles had been completed over the past three years, with construction workers “toiling day and night”.
Together with the planned construction of a giant bridge over the Strait of Messina linking Sicily with the mainland for the first time, the motorway would transform Sicily into “the new California”, he said. But the Left said that although the Mafia had been driven underground by a crackdown on organised crime over the past decade, it continued to flourish and was suspected of involvement in both the motorway and the Messina bridge.
Piero Grasso, the chief prosecutor in Palermo, said that there was “not a single public construction project in Sicily in which the influence of Cosa Nostra is not felt”.
Last week prosecutors said that Salvatore Cuffaro, president of the Sicilian region — who will cut the tape today with the Italian Prime Minister — was under investigation for alleged links with the Mafia, a charge he denies.
THE LONG HAUL
# La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the basilica designed by Antoni Gaudí and begun in 1882, is still unfinished # The Mont Blanc Tunnel between France and Italy was begun in 1957 and opened in 1965 # The Oresund link, the 10-mile (16km) bridge-tunnel connecting Sweden and Denmark, took from 1995 to 2000 # The Channel Tunnel, opened in 1994, took over seven years to build # Success story: Millau viaduct in France, designed by Lord Foster of Thames Bank and opened last week, was completed in three years
How long did it take Patton to make it from Palermo to Messina?
I imagine that the US Army COE would have been able to put a road in in much shorter order!!
Been that route by bus.
Imagine this project being undertaken by a European Union consortium...French engineering, Italian construction, German construction foremen and British bureaucrats.
i think the italians managed to this all by themselves. The Euro reference is about the funding (part funding) by the EU. Hey the Romans were great road builders, why not modern Italians.
If you want to talk about a long-term project, just look into the matter of the Rome subway....
A Phoenix firm was bidding on the bridge. Who got the contract?
So, is this the Italian equivalent of the Boston Big Dig?
Actually, we're great builders. You'd be surprised to know how many American and Canadian bridges, towers, dams and so on were designed, projected and realized by Italians.
Our problem is that we've had liberals and communists in charge of local administrations for 50 years. No surprise the road was finished with Berlusconi in charge. When given a chance, Italians voted for someone the MSM said was going nowhere. I agree, as all the rest of Europe we are in bad shapes, and yet we ain't dead yet.
We're already paying a high price for pulling ourselves outta the ashaming international policies of the EU. I hope our American friends will be able to do some more deep analysis. And please, don't elect Hillary in 2008!!!
:-))))
Plus you got the coolest language in the world. I think my next oversees trip has to be to Italy.
Will do our best to keep Ms. Clinton from becoming President in 08.
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