From the A1 to the Strait of Messina Bridge: Italy’s major infrastructure that gets the country moving

Roads, bridges, railways. Strategic infrastructure that gets millions of people moving. Infrastructure that has changed the history of countries like Italy, where the image of the first cars traveling on the “Autostrada del Sole” is now etched into the collective imagination. It is the summer of 1965, less than a year after the inauguration – October 4, 1964 – of the Autostrada del Sole (A1), a major symbol of the “economic miracle” that the country was enjoying at the time. The A1’s construction, which began in 1956, united the country, reducing travel times and distances while boosting trade, tourism, and social mobility.

Stretching for 760 kilometers, this transportation infrastructure represents the first true backbone of modern Italy, capable of sustaining mass motorisation.

The project was the result of an enormous collective effort, with thousands of workers labouring in often difficult conditions. There was also the contribution of leading engineers and construction companies, including some that later became part of the Webuild Group.

Today, more than sixty years later, the Italian highway network exceeds 7,000 kilometers and is a strategic infrastructure for the country’s transport needs. Within this network, the A1 remains a vital artery, one of those great works that have contributed to Italy’s infrastructure development and progress.

If the Autostrada del Sole marked the country’s entry into the motor age, high-speed rail has been the 21^st Century answer to demand for fast and sustainable connections.

Completed in 1992, the first high-speed line to be inaugurated was the Direttissima Rome–Florence, 254 kilometres long. It would then take two decades for the major backbone of the high-speed network to develop: Rome-Naples (2005); Turin-Milan (2009); and, most of all, Milan-Bologna-Florence, completed in 2009 with the corridor extended to Salerno.

The Florence-Bologna line, 79 kilometres long, with more than 70 of those in tunnels, is considered an engineering masterpiece: its high speed trains cross the Apennine mountain range thanks to a massive excavation project that cut travel times between the two cities to just 35 minutes.

Webuild took part in many of these infrastructure development endeavours and is currently engaged in expanding the network across other regions.

Among the most important new high-speed routes are the Brenner Base Tunnel that will connect the Italian town of Fortezza with Innsbruck in Austria. In addition to this, there are also the Verona–Padua high-speed rail line, the Salerno–Reggio Calabria line, and the Naples-Bari line. Meanwhile, in Sicily, work is underway on the Palermo-Messina-Catania high-capacity railway, which for the first time will bring double tracks to the island.

So it is no surprise that high-speed train travel has become a habit for millions of Italians: according to Trenitalia, Italy’s main passenger rail operator, over 80 million people travel this way every year.

The impact of these lines is therefore not only on mobility (the system has drastically reduced the use of airplanes on domestic routes) but also on social geography, allowing people to live and work in different cities without giving up leisure time.

Roads, railways, and also subways. The progress of a country is measured both outside and inside cities, in regional interchanges as well as in urban hubs where pollution and traffic risk affecting people’s quality of life. The metro systems of Milan, Rome, and Naples have each, in their own way, represented a step toward more modern and efficient mobility.

In Milan, the “blue line” M4, inaugurated in 2022 and completed in 2024 with a direct connection to Linate Airport, is one of the major urban mobility projects built by Webuild.

Spanning 15 kilometres with 21 underground stations, the M4 links the city from east to west in under 30 minutes, revolutionising daily commuting through the public transportation system. It was designed with cutting-edge technologies and a strong focus on sustainability: the construction sites, managed right in the city center, had to interact with urban life without disrupting it.

In Rome, the extension of Metro Line C is underway. The already-operational section links peripheral districts to the historic center, passing through areas of extremely high archaeological density: a unique challenge worldwide, with Webuild involved in building the most complex tunnels and stations.

Similarly, Naples’ metro system (Lines 1 and 6), with the so-called “Art Stations,” has transformed the concept of metro travel and urban transport into a cultural experience.

Italian metros today transport millions of passengers daily: Milan alone exceeds one million daily travellers, with a steadily growing demand for new urban infrastructure and fast, sustainable public transport.

There is a project that embodies the need for connection and more efficient transport. That project is the Strait of Messina Bridge, which combines both a road and a railway, offering a direct route for cars and high-speed trains to travel from Calabria to Sicily. For over fifty years, it has been discussed as a visionary challenge capable of physically uniting Sicily and Calabria. On August 6, 2025, after decades of plans and delays, the CIPESS (Interministerial Committee for Economic Planning and Sustainable Development) approved the final design, marking another significant step forward toward the start of construction.

The project predicts that the bridge, 3,660 metres long with a central span of 3,300 metres, will be the largest suspension bridge in the world, linking the two shores with an unprecedented engineering structure. The Strait of Messina Bridge will feature two roadways with three lanes each (two traffic lanes and one emergency lane) and a double-track railway, with a maximum capacity of 200 trains per day and 6,000 vehicles per hour.

The project will be built by an international consortium, Eurolink, led by Webuild, along with some of the most important players in the sector, such as: the Sacyr Group (Spain), a long-time partner of Webuild on the Panama Canal expansion project; IHI (Japan), which has built bridges like the Akashi in Japan, the Osman Ghazi in Turkey over the Bosphorus, and the Brăila Bridge over the Danube in Romania with Webuild; together with other Italian partners of Eurolink, including Condotte and Itinera.

For southern Italy, the Strait of Messina Bridge would represent a historic turning point: not only will it be a symbol of connection but also set the condition for fully integrating Sicily into Europe’s mobility corridors, opening up new opportunities for trade, tourism, and industrial development. An infrastructure that speaks to the future, but that already today embodies Italy’s drive to overcome its geographical limits.