The BreBeMi “hooks up” to the Milan-Venice motorway

The BreBeMi is “hooking up” to the A4; on Monday, 13 November, there is the inauguration of the new junction between the “private” motorway and the existing Milan-Venice motorway.

The President of Lombardy Region, Roberto Maroni, the Councillor for Infrastructure and Mobility, Alessandro Sorte, and the Councillor for Economic Development, Mauro Parolini. will also attend the ceremony.

For the BreBeMi, which today is dealing with a smaller amount of traffic than forecast, this new connection is an important step forward, although the problem of the west exit, which leads into Milan, has still not been resolved (it currently merges with the “Paullese” road).

According to forecasts, this new link road could increase the amount of traffic, by 30%, on the new A35, which, in the first 9 months of 2016, saw 37% less traffic than the average for Italian motorways.

The link road entails the building of the junction-interconnection for entering and leaving the A4 in Travagliato, a toll booth and the doubling of the existing link road that goes from Brescia’s southern bypass to the BreBeMi (which will become a dual carriageway, with two lanes per direction, and will remain toll-free). Also environmentalists and farmers have complained about the work, because it has taken up more “virgin” soil (calculated to be 60 hectares), which is mostly used for agricultural purposes, in one of Po Valley’s most productive areas. Furthermore, new constructions are being built along the motorway, with a real estate boom that Councillor Sorte recently praised, and that others see as a threat (in a Lombardy, which has legally acknowledged the issue of soil consumption).

Although the BreBeMi has been described as “Italy’s first private motorway”, there is, in fact, also a strong presence of public funds supporting the investment; it is frequently mentioned, together with the TEEM and the Pedemontana, as part of Lombardy’s “system” of infrastructure. The commercial agent is CAL, a company that is part owned by the national road board, ANAS, and by Lombardy Region (through the company Infrastrutture Lombarde S.p.A.). The investment bank Cassa Depositi e Prestiti is involved, the Government provided €300 million, with a dedicated fund. In 2014, Lombardy Region also provided funds of €60 million covering the discount, in view of difficulties in attracting traffic to the new motorway. In 2016, the management company reduced the loss from €68.931 million to €49.111 million, less public funds. In any case, this situation is less worrying than the other, new motorway, the Lombard Pedemontana, where there is still a danger the company goes bankrupt, which Lombardy Region is trying to prevent.