The shame of the failure to build the Tirrenica, the motorway that should connect Livorno to Civitavecchia, completing the motorway axis from Genoa to Rome, has taken another step forward in recent days. The Government has removed the Livorno-Civitavecchia from the priority works sending it for now on a siding, despite the endless deaths that the old Aurelia causes every year, engulfed as it is by local traffic, regional traffic, national traffic, international traffic and tourist traffic .
Once again the local lobbies that don't want the Tyrrhenian Sea seem to have won, despite the concerns for the area having long since been reduced. After all, is it ever possible that only in the Civitavecchia-Grosseto section a motorway or a superhighway is not compatible with the defense of the territory?
Now it will be the turn of the new Minister of Infrastructure. Graziano Delrio, decide what to do, but barring new twists and despite the reassurances on the signing of the new protocols expressed just a few days ago, the Tirrenica, according to what was anticipated by "Il Sole 24 Ore", should definitively leave the 49 priority works envisaged by the new infrastructure plan. Which does not mean that the Tyrrhenian Sea will no longer be built, but if it does, it will be entirely private and will require longer times.
Autostrade per l'Italia, the company that manages the motorway network under the control of Atlantia, the Benetton holding company, which holds the majority of Sat (the Tyrrhenian motorway company) in its hands after the retreat of Caltagirone, which had smelled months ago the swamping of the work, it seems intent on completing the Tyrrhenian on its own.
The Benettons would be ready to renounce the public contribution of 270 million euros initially envisaged by the Unblock Italy decree for the Tyrrhenian Sea but are asking, in exchange, for the freedom to increase tolls on the entire motorway network they have under concession. A new agreement between Atlantia and the government should be reached by May, but the uncertainties on the Tyrrhenian Sea are endless and it remains to be seen whether the mayors will approve the new layouts of the project.
Until then, the Tyrrhenian remained a chimera and, if the superhighway built in recent years has in fact covered the stretch between Livorno and Grosseto, between Civitavecchia and Grosseto, for now, only the old Aurelia remains, with all the traffic and safety problems which ensue.
