Fifty years ago marked the inauguration of one of the public works that helped shorten distances in Central Italy: on July 10, 1969, the first section of the A24 highway was opened, between the Rome Ring Road – Tivoli – Castel Madama. A few months later, on September 14, the Torano – L’Aquila section was opened to traffic.
This shortened the distances between the Capital and the centers of Abruzzo, between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Adriatic Sea, which is why the A24 was called the “Two Seas” highway.
We have collected images chronicling the work to build the A24 and A25 highways from the late 1960s, to the opening of the Gran Sasso Tunnel, to the New Complanari
The first major work was the Lo Stonio Tunnel on the A24 between Tivoli and Castel Madama, built between 1967 and 1968. It was the first among the 54 tunnels on the entire highway network. It is 1240 meters long
The initiative that led to the construction of this highway, and also of the A25, dates back to 1960, with the establishment of the Società Autostrada Roma – Civitavecchia, which later, in 1961, became the Società Autostrade Romane. The A24 highway is immersed in an extraordinary naturalistic landscape, and offers the fastest and most direct connection between the city of Rome, penetrating like no other highway a few kilometers away from the historic center, and Abruzzo.
