Highways

(by Marco Zacchera) I have been writing IL PUNTO weekly for 15 years and the longest-lived readers have read endless comments on the events linked to the concessions of Italian motorways, real gold mines for a few companies and daily drain for motorists.

A para-political traffic that has ancient vices and roots, because everyone talks about the Benettons today, but few remember first of all that there are other companies that manage the network and that in recent years no Magistrate seems to have ever had the will to fully understand how "concessions" in which tolls increased well beyond inflation were managed and made possible, but nobody seemed to protest.

Just as nobody seems to have ever considered that on the "granted" routes, more and more vehicles than "historic" ones traveled, another huge "extra" for operators with a multiplication of tolls.

On the other hand, maintenance work has always languished: apart from the Morandi bridge, there are unfinished sections that have been under maintenance for decades, everlasting works that never end. (One for all the northern ring road of Milan around Cormano, despite being one of the busiest stretches in Italy).

All this just to remember that the entire political system had generous "sponsors" in this game, especially in the key x DC, ex Margherita, PD and associates, with peaks of excellence in the SVP, the South Tyrolean party that always has its niche in the subgovernment and an eye for Verona-Brenner.

Endless examples to underline that perhaps more than withdrawing concessions, it would be necessary to drastically reduce tolls, impose checks and maintenance and be wary of ANAS type wagons that do not seem to me absolutely capable of taking over the motorway network, especially seeing also how roads and expressways are tanned around Italy.

The ANAS "maintenance squares" - who knows why they are always made up of fatigued men - have never thrilled me and are a visible example of very poor efficiency.

Highways