A33 Asti-Cuneo Motorway: Final Section Opens to Traffic, Closing a Thirty-Year Wait

The A33 Asti-Cuneo Motorway is now fully operational, with two lanes per direction opened to traffic between Cherasco and the Alba West interchange. The two Piedmontese provincial capitals are now connected by an infrastructure of approximately 90 kilometres that strengthens links with the Ligurian ports and with the main national and European corridors.

Proger is the designer behind the completion of the project, which has finally closed a story spanning over thirty years, marked by delays, disputes and works that opened and stopped in alternating phases. The contribution took the form of adapting the design to the requirements that emerged over time, with particular attention to the environmental sustainability of the intervention.

“Design played a decisive role in overcoming technical issues, territorial, environmental and landscape constraints, as well as geological and geotechnical challenges, and it benefited from the full involvement of the many stakeholders across the territory. This milestone is the result of an extraordinary teamwork between the executing contractor, Itinera SpA, and the Proger team, whom I wish to thank for their intense commitment. A synergistic collaboration that made it possible to unblock and complete a project that had been at a standstill for over thirty years,” says Salvatore Sguazzo, Technical Operations Director of Proger’s Civil Engineering BU.

The infrastructure develops along a complex alignment running adjacent to the Tanaro river, with a system of viaducts and embankments that required advanced engineering solutions and geotechnical studies, and crosses areas of significant landscape and cultural value, where two UNESCO sites coexist: the Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont, Langhe-Roero and Monferrato, and the Royal Residences of the House of Savoy, of which the complex of Pollenzo is part.

The complexity of such a layered territory called for finely calibrated design choices: from the use of recycled materials in the road surface to the choice of materials, colours and architectural features of viaducts and supporting structures, from the ecoduct for wildlife crossing to the bat bridge protecting the bat colony of Santa Vittoria d’Alba. “The final result is a modern, sustainable infrastructure that integrates with its surrounding environment. It is concrete proof of how an advanced, multidisciplinary design approach can turn one of the most complex and debated infrastructures of recent decades into a tangible and shared result,” concludes Sguazzo.