2024-09-25 10:27:30
The first motorway in the world is located in Italy and is known today as the A8 or Autostrada dei Laghi. On September 21, 1924, it was opened by the king of Italy – Vittorio Emanuele III, and by the engineer who designed it – Piero Puricelli. The 100th anniversary was celebrated with a procession of historic and vintage cars.
At a time when most of the population traveled by cart, bicycle or train, some highways already existed in New York (Long Island Motor Parkway) and Berlin (Automobil Verkehrs und Übungs-Straße), but they were designed and built only for motor racing and private traffic.
The “modern” concept of a highway, i.e. a road reserved for cars only, was born on the Milan-Varese road. It was she who received the certificate for the first toll highway in the world.
Today there are over 50 million vehicles on the road in Italy, in 1924 they were just under 85 thousand (about 57 thousand cars, 25 thousand trucks and about 2,500 buses). The Milan-Varese highway is created with one lane in each direction, with a width varying from 11 to 14 meters and a pavement of concrete slabs with a thickness of 18 to 20 cm. The route is almost entirely straight, with several turns with a radius of not less than 400 meters and with slopes within 3%.
The work cost 90 million pounds at the time (equivalent to the same figure today in euros) and to carry it out, over 4,000 workers worked even at night, moving 2 million cubic meters of earth. Until 1946, toll collectors were required to wear the company uniform and give a military salute as each vehicle passed.