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2007-07-25 18:12 |
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Cardinal
blasts Italian motorway |
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Authorities deny being resigned to
endless roadworks |
(ANSA) - Rome, July 25 - The government and national motorway
authorities ran for cover on Wednesday after a public
tongue-lashing from a top Vatican cardinal over hold-ups and
roadworks on a key southern highway.
Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's 'Justice and
Peace' department, expressed his indignation after taking five
hours to cover 200km recently while travelling on the A3
motorway between Salerno and Reggio Calabria.
"It was a real Via Crucis," the prelate said in an interview
with Corriere della Sera, adding that he wanted to protest "as a
citizen and as road-user". "My experience was scarcely bearable.
It was one interminable building site, continual detours, no
possibility to plan a break at a service station, everyone stuck
in a line under a blazing sun".
The A3 motorway has been undergoing work to widen it for several
years. In recent days problems have been heightened by brush and
forest fires which forced sections to be closed and traffic
diverted.
Infrastructure Minister Antonio Di Pietro admitted that the
situation on the A3 would even test the patience of "The
Almighty" but he noted that something had changed lately.
"Up to now you couldn't use much of the motorway because the
road was broken. Now you can't use it because they're mending it,"
he said, adding that much of the current work would be finished
by the end of the summer.
Cardinal Martino, who was born in Salerno, near Naples, said he
often used the motorway and frequently saw sections of road
closed for works but with no one doing any.
He strongly implied that the Mafia was involved in spinning out
the work for as long as possible and said the result was a
symbol of the south's "resigned" attitude to its woes.
"Where are the politicians? Is it possible that we southerners
can't demand a bit of respect from those that govern us?" ANAS,
the national road agency, released a response to the prelate's
complaints, firmly denying that it had a resigned attitude and
vowing its commitment to a "modern, secure and fluid" highway
between Salerno and Reggio.
The 450-km motorway was opened in 1974 and unusually for Italy
it is a toll-free highway. It carries a heavy traffic-load,
especially in summer, and work to modernise and widen it has
been going on intermittently for years.
ANAS said that in the last year the fully completed sections
went up from 131 kilometres to 166. It also promised that from
tomorrow users would be offered "boosted information and
support".
The Italian cardinal's outburst won applause from the head of
the regional government in Calabria, Agazio Loiero, who said the
part of the motorway in his region was even worse than the one
on which the prelate travelled.
"This highway is a symbol of all the work which hasn't been done
or which has been done badly in the south," he said.
"It was supposed to shorten the distance between north and south
but these eternal roadworks have made the south more cut off
than ever," he added.
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