ASTI – The Verduno-Cherasco stretch of motorway, which is a part of the Asti-Cuneo project, will be open by 2024, according to several entities involved in the construction of the great work.
Thanks to a question asked by one of our readers, let’s clarify the status of the works on the motorway connecting the provinces of Asti and Cuneo and see who plans to open it within this year, who is doubtful and how much money is in the pipeline .
The subjects involved and the objective of the work
The construction of the Asti-Cuneo route involves five entities: Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport; Piedmont Region, Province of Cuneo, ANAS SpA, Autostrada Asti-Cuneo SpA The idea of the connection was “born in relation to the prospect of creating the motorway connection Cuneo-Nice and by the need to relieve traffic arriving from the highway forced, in the absence of the ring road, to cross the inhabited centers of Madonna dell’Olmo and Confreria”.
source: https://www.otipiemonte.it/allegati/33.pdf
Production times
The work is included in the three-year public works plan 2024-2026, published here by the Province of Cuneo. In the paragraph dedicated to roads, it is expressly stated that the “complementary works to the Asti-Cuneo motorway” must be completed within these three years.
Confindustria also seems optimistic about the implementation times: “positive signal for the major road projects in the foothills of the A33 Asti-Cuneo motorway (lot 2.6b RoddiVerduno completed in April 2023 and conclusion of lot 2.6° Verduno-Cherasco to be completed in 2024)” , we read in the Confindustria monitoring.
The official announcement arrived in November 2023, when the Services Conference was convened for the complementary works of this motorway; here the methods and times in which the project would be available to the public were defined. “The last 5 kilometers of the Asti-Cuneo route will be completed – the Province had said –, in continuity, as expected, with those completed of lot II.6.B. The works should be completed by the end of 2024.”
The first package of complementary works, i.e. those that surround the actual road and allow it to be practicable, cost “around 42 million euros and was shared by the Region with the Province and with the local municipalities”. The excavations began in April, QP had talked about it here.
The second package concerned the works on the Alba ring road, linked to the Alba section. Here, however, the deadline is different: these interventions expire in 2026.
Asti-Cuneo will open by 2024 also according to the May update of the Territorial Infrastructure Observatory (Oti), i.e. the monitoring portal for large works managed by Confindustria Piemonte, the Industrial Union of Turin and the Chamber of Commerce of Turin, in collaboration with the Piedmont Region.
The doubts
Local politicians and citizens have raised doubts about when the highway will actually be open to the public. The problem would concern the stretch of ring road near Alba; one of the critics is Maurizio Marello, regional councilor of the Democratic Party: “the Alba-Cherasco/sub A lot remains to be built, without which the motorway is not finished,” Marello said in a question to regional councilor Gabusi, “in addition to the complete renovation and adaptation of the Alba ring road which is currently in very poor condition, especially with reference to the road surface. Following numerous questions I have presented on this topic, I believe it is important to clarify once and for all the completion of the so-called ‘eternal unfinished'”.
Marco Gabusi, however, responded to him in March, reiterating the complete opening by 2024.
Costs
Between one complementary lot and another, the overall cost of Asti-Cuneo is 1.457 billion euros. Of these, 782 million euros were financed with public contributions, while the remaining share is borne by the concessionary company Asti-Cuneo SpA
