The Apennine lands along the A1 motorway: between depopulation and new pioneers

The Apennine section of the A1 Autostrada del Sole, between the Casalecchio di Reno, Rioveggio, Pian Del Voglio, Roncobilaccio, and Barberino del Mugello exits, was traveled by about 89,000 vehicles per day until December 23, 2015, with peaks of 25,000 trucks and buses three times the number estimated at the time of its inauguration in 1964, after 8 years of construction and innovative engineering solutions for the era.

Today, the same highway, which remained in service after the opening of the Variante di Valico but was renamed “A1 Panoramica,” sees 75% fewer cars and 95% fewer heavy vehicles. The new route, which at its highest point is 226 meters lower than the original, allows a reduction of nearly a third in travel times between Bologna and Florence and a fuel savings estimated by Autostrade at about one hundred million liters per year. Furthermore, there has been a significant decrease in the number of accidents, thanks to the greater safety and smoother layout of the new highway, which runs for about half of its 32 kilometers through tunnels. The Variante di Valico was designed to meet the need for fast connections between Italy’s most populous and productive cities along the Naples-Rome-Milan corridor, the same one used by high-speed trains that run a few valleys to the east of the A1.

Between 1964 and 2015, not only the construction technologies and traffic needs have changed, but the very conception of the territory, its economic development, and its settlement patterns. Centers have shifted, and suburbs have expanded, often swallowing vast agricultural areas, urbanizing them first and then frequently abandoning them due to economic and real estate crises.

What has been left behind, removed from the new geography of speed and modernity, are the so-called “internal areas,” increasingly depopulated and deprived of services, infrastructure, residents, and future prospects. This has also happened to the old Autostrada del Sole, which, losing most of its traffic, has lost its historic role as a connection between the inner Apennine region and the valley cities of Emilia and Florence, further cementing the marginalization of the highlands.

But what has really changed along the Apennine ridge of Emilia after four years of the Variante di Valico? Environmental benefits are certainly observable, but there has also been a drastic reduction in residential and transit presence in an already fragile area, which has been in decline for many decades. Since the wartime exodus along the Gothic Line and the German massacres (Marzabotto is just a few kilometers away), people began fleeing the countryside to the cities, while the forest and brambles overtook pastures and fields. Then, the booming development of the plains in the 1960s and 1970s, with its industries and services, marked the end of an era. The decline in commercial and tourist activities in the area (restaurants, hotels, gas stations) is now estimated at between 60 and 80%. A notable example is the hotel at the Roncobilaccio service area, once frequented year-round by truck drivers and travelers but now closed, perhaps permanently. The same has happened to many restaurants in the area, once packed during frequent traffic jams at the pass, and now only open in summer, when people from Bologna and Florence head to the mountains in search of cool air.

Local — and not only local — politicians have repeatedly proposed resilience as a way to ensure at least minimal survival for the areas around the pass, advocating a slow, happy form of decoupled growth based on “authentic” tourism, weekends, and summer folklore. But the Emilia Apennines is a tough, rugged land, difficult to travel and far from the cities; it’s made up of landslides, old hardships, and new livelihoods that remain barely sustainable. Those who have tamed it in the past did so with courage, long-term planning, and a willingness to take risks, overcoming economic, natural, logistical, and infrastructural complexities.

A new population seems to be slowly emerging here and there, promising to replace the people of the diaspora that began in the 1950s: farmers, breeders, and new mountain dwellers who are reclaiming abandoned lands and slowly tilling them, trying new housing and work solutions that are more sustainable both environmentally and socially and economically. Without bosses, without managers, and without deadlines dictated by business, but by the changing seasons and the needs of the animals. They are still few, but here and there they are beginning to re-color the land. Will they be enough?